


The Hardest Victory

by slashsailing



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Affairs, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Anal Fingering, Barebacking, Blow Jobs, Break Up, Canonical Character Death, Drug Addiction, Drug Withdrawal, Eating Disorders, Euthanasia, Explicit Sexual Content, F/F, F/M, Infidelity, Journalism, M/M, Minor Character Death, Past Drug Use, Political Campaigns, Pregnancy Scares, Relapsing, Temporary Separation, Terminal Illnesses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-06
Updated: 2014-10-10
Packaged: 2018-01-21 07:29:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 63,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1542602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slashsailing/pseuds/slashsailing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Winona Kirk announces her intention to run for the presidency, her entire family's lives are changed. For Jim Kirk, recovering drug addict and accused homewrecker, this could be the event that finally pushes him off the edge. Will they be able to come together and work through their hardships or will they end up floundering?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Truth in a Name

**Author's Note:**

> While it's based on the TV show Political Animals (2012) knowledge of the mini-series is not at all necessary to read this. Basically just think of it as a modern AU with elements of political drama. Although, I'm British so it's not too politic heavy because I don't know a great deal about the US system. (Here is the part where I give thanks to Wikipedia). 
> 
> The title based on the Aristotelian quote: "I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies; for the hardest victory is over self." Which I finally decided on because—which I only found out recently—the title Political Animals also comes from an Aristotle quote: "Man is by nature a political animal." 
> 
> Finally, I'd like to say a huge thank you to my wonderful beta Xyri. You've done, and continue to do, so well at putting up with my ridiculousness, you're a diamond!

Winona Kirk has been called many things in her time: a saint; a sinner, but none of it really matters. The political sphere is ever changing; a story written today could mean absolutely nothing next week. Hell, it probably won't even be _remembered_  this time next year. So yes, Winona Kirk has been called a saint, and she has been called a sinner; she's been dubbed a political pariah, a faithful feminist. She's been called an ambitious vixen and a weak-winged dove. She's been bestowed every one of these titles, sometimes in articles that stood side by side each other in the same damn news sheet. And perhaps at one time or another she has been all of those things. In fact, she knows she has. But it still doesn't matter.

What matters now is whether or not she will ever be called Madame President.

Perhaps this title will be a deserved one, attached to a story people will remember. It is certainly a desired one.

To be the first female president of the United States of America is more than just a career choice or a piece of front page news. It is Winona Kirk's duty, a duty she feels deep in her bones. It is a moral obligation. She may not have known it back in her college days when she was majoring in Political Science, or when she began law school, but she knows it now as sure as she knows her own name. Some will say it is a desire born from residue ambition transferred to her by her late husband George: a parting gift, still clinging to her like powdery soil on well-worn gardening gloves, staining her. Some will say it is nothing more than boredom and fear. She wants the power she was once promised. She wants the security that was ripped away from her so many years ago.

Winona, if anyone would listen, will tell you it is necessary. For her to sleep soundly at night she must run for presidency and she must win. Not for power, not for money or acclaim. Not to win. No. She must become president for the good of her country. Her integrity is at stake.

She wonders what George would say. George Kirk, young and beautiful: shot on his inauguration day, assassinated by a breakaway Soviet terrorist group known as Romulus.

He'd probably kiss her forehead and tell her to fly as high as her wings could take her. He'd encourage her to finish the job he started. They had a vision: to make their country a better place to raise their boys. To make it a place that men and women would be proud to be a part of.

That is still her vision. Even though her boys are grown, even though it has been twenty-three years since George stood on a platform in a dark blue suit to give his inauguration speech. It is still her vision, even though so much has changed.

Madame President.

Yes, that is how she wants to be remembered. That is the name she wants to be called.

But she has a long journey ahead of her.

Especially if she plans to run against the current president, Alexander Marcus, a man she thought she could work under but had come to realise intends to keep none of the promises he once made. Winona Kirk no longer wants to be Secretary of State. She no longer wants to watch on idly as Alexander sends her country to ruins with threats of war and bad diplomacy.

"Mom?"

Jim, her youngest son, stands at the open door of her bedroom, looking in confusedly. "What are you doing? It's past three."

"I could ask you the same question," she counters.

Jim is a wild card. He came out at fourteen under the camera gaze of political press and paparazzi. He's been called just as many names as Winona, both good and bad. He's the queer boy, the faggot. He's brave: an example of open honesty and the product of a loving liberal environment. He's also a coke addict and borderline alcoholic. Ultimately, Jim Kirk is a mess.

He's also a sweet and caring boy; an intelligent boy. He's got just as much will and determination in him as Winona and he could have done great things if his life hadn't already been emptied down the drain. Jim's downfall is that he can't cope, not with the loss of his father or the expectation of the media. He cannot be what anyone wants or needs him to be. He ostracises himself because it's safer that way. Self-alienation protects him from rejection.

"I was with Bones," Jim says, gently, because he's ashamed.

Winona doesn't care who her children love as long as they're happy, but Jim has had to bear the brunt of America's bigotry. Just like their pride and sense of honour, American hatred runs deep and unforgiving. Jim wishes he could be straight, for his country, even though he's never felt love the way he has with Leonard McCoy. _Bones_ , as Jim calls him, who is a doctor and a good man.

A married man.

"Sneaking around," Winona sighs. "I know the feeling."

"Then you know it's complicated."

"You're worth more than half a man, Jim; you deserve all of him. You deserve everything," she says it like it’s an oath; like it's something she would lay down her life to uphold and protect.

"He can't come out yet," is all Jim says, stepping back from the door. "Night, Mom. Try and sleep."

"Night, baby."

And Winona does try, but there is too much swirling around her head to be able to settle into any real sleep. She dozes, on and off until her alarm sirens at six am. She needs to start putting her plans into motion. She needs to call Sam.

Sam is the eldest. The golden boy. He can do no wrong. He is a white, cisgender male in a heterosexual relationship with a pretty Caucasian woman who appears just as Waspish as he does with her blue eyes and faultless brunette locks. He went to Harvard, as did she. They met and they fell in love. Voilà: the perfect romance. Perhaps, one day, a bestselling novel. Her name is Aurelan and she is pregnant with the second Kirk grandchild. They have been married three years and have done everything by the book, down to the very last white picket of their garden fence. They both turn twenty-seven in a couple of months and they couldn't be happier. Unlike Jim's, Sam's life came gift wrapped in a little blue box and a cream satin ribbon. And, of course, the bow is perfectly tied.

Sam is Winona's Chief of Staff and he should be the first to know about her intentions to run for the presidency. He'll no doubt be her campaign manager.

But first, raspberries and natural yogurt. That's the way Winona Kirk starts her day. Then she will check and reply to her emails, and then she will begin making her phone calls. She can be patient. Sam can wait.

#

Winona is already gone when Jim wakes up. He has an urgent desire to call Leonard, but he knows that sort of thing is off the cards—for a while at least. Leonard is a married man; he'll probably still be in bed with Jocelyn—his wife—and Jim's phone calls have no place in their marital bed, even if their marriage has been as good as over for the last four years. It's a slowly dying bird that no longer has the inclination to fly. But Leonard's family is old fashioned. They are old Southern money, they are old Southern values. David and Eleanora McCoy do not want a homosexual son. They want a son who will give them biological grandchildren with the nice young debutante girl they picked out for him when he was eighteen.

They'd certainly don't want Jim anywhere near their baby boy.

Their _twenty-nine-_ year-old baby boy.

But Jim is in love.

And Jim has always been stupid.

He hits his speed dial.

"Jim? What's wrong?" Leonard's voice doesn't sound like he's still in bed. Usually when he's not on rotation at the hospital, Leonard is a late riser. Something must be different today.

"Nothing. I'm fine," Jim assures him, "I just wanted to talk to you."

"About what?" Leonard sounds amused.

"I don't know, anything." Jim shrugs, even though Leonard can't see him.

"Jocelyn woke me up early when she went out shopping. Are you home alone? Can I come over? Should I?"

"You should."

"Okay," Leonard replies, and Jim can tell he's smiling. "I'll see you in twenty."

Jim has been seeing Leonard McCoy for eight months now. They met at a charity event the McCoys were hosting for the future campaign of a Republican candidate who will be running against Alexander Marcus in the next election. Jim was only there because his mother was there who was only there because the backhanded invitation everyone knew was only a Republican ploy to scout out their competition.

Leonard looked as if he were being dragged over hot coals. Jim felt his pain.

"I don't vote Republican," Leonard had whispered to Jim, as if it were something he desperately needed to get off his chest. Jim had laughed and clinked their glasses together. They were like two co-conspirators standing in the corner of the ball room plotting treason.

"Me neither," Jim had grinned.

Then he'd leered, then he'd coaxed Leonard outside, and _then_ he'd blown him, right there behind one of the family’s prized peach trees, getting dirt on the knees of his tailored trousers.

Love was just a by-product that developed somewhere down the line. Where that happened, exactly, Jim has trouble pinpointing with any accuracy. He thinks it might have been at first sight, or at least it feels that way in hindsight. He doesn't remember ever not being head over heels in love with Leonard and he knows the doctor feels the same.

But when he comes out, Leonard's life will end as he knows it. So Jim doesn't begrudge him for wanting to hold on to some semblance of normalcy.

"There's someone at the door for you, Jimmy," his grandfather, Tiberius, informs him. "That young doctor friend of yours," he adds, eyes knowing. Most people think Tiberius is nothing more than a silly old coot. Jim knows better. Tiberius is as savvy as they come, not the most politically—or ethically—minded, but the man is a street genius.

"Thanks, Grandpa." Jim nods his acknowledgement. "Let me put a sweater on."

"Like the boy ain't seen your chest before," Tiberius mutters, heading back down the hallway. "Like it ain't gonna come right back off again."

" _Grandpa_!"

But Tiberius is already gone and when Jim gets to the stairs he sees that Leonard is already waiting in the entrance hall. He's dressed in one of his good suits and Jim looks like a ruffian in comparison: still in his satin sleep pants and an old Abercrombie and Fitch sweatshirt.

Leonard likes Jim like that though, rough around the edges. Honest.

Jim's a recovering coke head for Christ's sake; Leonard has seen Jim in far worse states.

"Ignore whatever he said to you," Jim chuckles, stepping up to capture Leonard's lips. The doctor's hands instinctively find Jim's waist and pull him closer, kissing his lover for all either of them are worth before pulling away.

"He told me I need to let you get more beauty sleep," Leonard says, cheeks colouring.

"He must have heard me come in last night, mom was still awake, maybe he heard us talking.

"I just—they're so calm about it. If it was me-"

"It's not, though," Jim reassures him. "No one cares who I'm with, but your parents are different. I get that."

"I hate having to kick you out in the middle of night. I hate having to sneak around my office and your house and I hate lying to everyone," Leonard huffs. "I think—I'm gonna ask Joce for a divorce. This weekend. I'm gonna file the paperwork and get things movin'."

"And I'll be right here, standing by you every step of the way. You have my family's support, Bones, you're not gonna be alone in this.”

"I love you, you know that?"

Jim just smiles. Of course he does.

#

Winona arrives in the Vice President's office at 08:05 and isn't surprised to find Christopher Pike already in a heated debate over the phone. He looks up at her and smiles, raising a finger and wincing apologetically before frowning pointedly at his iPhone. He mouths a name but Winona's too far away to lip read so she just nods understandingly and sits in one of the finely upholstered, jade-coloured chairs that reside in the corners of the room opposite the windows.

It's 08:13 before Christopher gets off the phone. It looks like the dissatisfying conversation that makes Winona mourn the loss of old fashioned phones comprised of a receiver and stand—a receiver you can smash down back onto its perch and feel as if you've had the last word even if you haven't.

"Alexander's going to pull us into another Cold War if he isn't careful," he huffs.

"You're not meant to shout at the president like that, Chris," Winona smirks. "You're meant to be his favourite yes-man."

"He can go and screw himself if he thinks I'm going to back him on this." Christopher scowls. "He's like a child that wants to play with toys he doesn't even know how to use."

"Oooh," Winona teases. "Metaphors before half eight; he's really pissed you off, huh?"

"Behave, ducky."

"I have something I need to discuss with you," Winona starts, ignoring the much-detested nickname in favour of getting the rest of her day in motion.

"Oh?"

"Yeah, Sam's on his way up now."

"It's big news then," Christopher guesses.

"It is."

"Are you going to run against Marcus in the primaries?"

"I can neither confirm nor deny."

"You always say that's as good as a confirmation"

Winona just shrugs.

Christopher grins.

"How long until Sam gets here?"

"Twenty minutes." Winona glances down at her watch, smiling.

"C'mere, ducky," Christopher says, rolling back in his chair and holding out a hand to her. She steps closer to him, letting the curve of her ass press against his desk.

"You know how much I hate it when you call me that," Winona warns, leaning forward to rest both hands on Christopher's spread thighs. They kiss gently at first but he rolls his chair back to where it was before and Winona ends up with his arms wrapped around her waist and his mouth at her throat.

She's been seeing Christopher on and off, in secret, for nearly five years. It's decorum and bureaucracy that keep their relationship in the shadows. Christopher would have been George Kirk's Chief of Staff had he ever made it off the podium. They were best friend—in the political sense, at least. That aside, Winona can't tell people she's fucking a man six years her junior, who ultimately holds more power than her, and still be seen as the strong, powerhouse woman the public current perceive her to be.

Jim Kirk, Winona's baby boy and Christopher's godson, is the only other person on the planet who knows about them. And perhaps the only one who ever will—just one more in a long list of burdens that her political career has forced onto his shoulders.

#

Jim and Leonard have fucked in a lot of places in their eight months together, but never on the warm-tiled floor of the indoor pool room. Still wet from their swim, hair dripping as they press their bodies together, writhing and teasing without committing to more concrete touches. _Not yet._ Leonard kisses over Jim's ribcage, counting each notch even though he's a doctor and he already knows how many he will find. He flicks his tongue against Jim's nipple before sucking a love bite into his pectoral muscle. Jim can't leave marks on Leonard for obvious reasons, but Leonard doesn't have to conform to the same limitations. Leonard makes sure Jim's body remembers him and every moment of their time together.

"Bones," Jim breathes.

Leonard makes an agreeing noise in the back of his throat and sets his hands over Jim's hips, sliding on top of the slightly smaller man. Jim is slender and lithe where Leonard is broad; with his muscled back and thighs, it is only his narrow waist that stands in similarity to Jim's. Jim looks elegant and graceful, even though he's usually dresses in faded skinny jeans and some sort of dark and grotty looking t-shirt. Naked, though, under Leonard's huge hands, his body looks vulnerable and Leonard can't help the surge of protectiveness that swells up inside of him. He presses a kiss to Jim's lips as his hands run over Jim's hips and down the side of his thighs, resting under them, holding the crook of his calves and spreading Jim's legs. He's on his knees in between Jim, cock achingly hard against his stomach.

Jim has a look of mischief alight in his eyes, playful and sultry.

If they hadn't already gone two rounds in Jim's bedroom, they might be suffering the lack of lubricant right now, but Jim is loose and demanding to be filled again. He presses the pads of his fingers into Leonard's upper arms, encouraging.

"Come on, Bones," he growls, colliding his lips ferociously with Leonard's. They’re like two waves crashing over each other, drowning in each other’s wake, always gasping for air, gasping for more.

Leonard can't refuse an offer like this, can't deny Jim anything.

They make love on the floor of the pool room, like two teenagers chancing their luck, knowing they won’t get caught but hoping they might. Leonard wants to show Jim off to the world; Jim wants to return the favour. He wants to make good for once, he wants to show the world that he can last at something. He can make someone want to stick around. The world has never seen that before.

Because who stays for an overgrown, outdated teen rebellion turned cocaine addict?

Leonard, that’s who.

He sees something the media doesn’t. He sees Jim Kirk.


	2. Into Motion

Sam arrives at the door of Christopher’s office promptly at 08:30; he has a cup of coffee in one hand and his briefcase in the other. His suit is new, something Aurelan’s mother suggested when he took the two women out to lunch last weekend. He knows that Winona is going to throw him one almighty curve-ball; otherwise, they would have met at 09:00 as usual. He knows his mother’s habits better than anyone, so he knows whatever news she has to tell him will likely be world-shattering. With a rowdy toddler and a heavily pregnant wife at home Sam could really do without anything world-shattering, especially where his mother is concerned. But Winona moves to the beat of her own drum, so that means Sam is just going to have to face the music. Dressing sharply helps him feel in control. Coffee helps him appear in control.

He’s got this. Whatever it is, he can handle it.

“Madame Secretary,” he greets when Christopher calls him through. “Chris.” He tilts his head politely and takes a seat next to his mother.

“How’s Aurelan?” Winona asks.

“She complains about looking fat and feeling like a whale,” Sam shrugs. “Same old, same old.”

“She seems to be smaller than she was with Peter, though,” Christopher notes.

“She’s exactly where she should be for six months,” Sam says. “The doctors are happy.”

“Of course they are.” Winona smiles. “She’s glowing.”

"So anyway, what's the early call all about?" Sam asks.

"Your mother's going to run against Alexander in the primaries," Christopher announces, looking at Winona proudly, who's frowning at him in return.

"Chris!" she chides. "I didn't say that."

"You didn't have to.”

"You're going to run for the presidency?" Sam knew it would be big news, but he didn't imagine this. World shattering doesn't cover this. "Why?" he asks, trying not to sound as unenthused as he feels. Frankly, he's terrified. His father was murdered when he was nothing more than a tiny little blond head clinging to his mother's hand, just shy of four years old. He's watched every president since then, in awe at first, the easy enthralment of a child, and then in distaste at how even the most persuasive men have fallen under the pressure of running the country and succumbed to cop-out after cop-out. He's seen families fall apart. He's seen compromise and hypocrisy. He's seen good men become the Devil.

Winona is a woman, though. Perhaps that speaks to the potential for change. Perhaps Winona can manage something her predecessors never could.

The prospect is still frightening as Hell.

"I'm going to run for presidency," she says with a nod, "and you're going to be my campaign manager."

#

Jim pads around the kitchen in just a pair of cotton sleep pants. Leonard is sitting on a stool, one elbow braced on the granite countertop of the island as he peruses a bowl of spaghetti like it holds the answers to the every question he might ever wish to ask. He's wearing his shirt again, although it remains unbuttoned. Jim lets his gaze wander over the glimpse of bronzed chest, leaning over the counter to catch a glance of Leonard's dark treasure trail.

"What're you thinking about?"

"Huh?" Leonard looks up, fork hitting the bowl and splashing red sauce over his cheekbone. Jim would lick it off if Tiberius weren’t still lurking around the house. And Leonard's cheek isn't the only thing Jim would like to lick.

"The spaghetti must be pretty good to leave you speechless," Jim jibes.

"I'm scared," Leonard admits, standing and pushing the chair back, like he can't be anywhere near it, like he can't meet with the constriction and limitation the innocent furniture represents.

"I know you are," Jim whispers, walking around to Leonard's side of the counter and setting his hands on Leonard's narrow hips.

"But I love you so damn much," Leonard continues the sentiment, almost breathless. The admission isn't an unfamiliar one, but Leonard's voice is rough now, scratching. He needs Jim to know that he feels this deep in his bones, right to his very core. He loves Jim, and he will face every one of his many fears to prove it.

"I know, Bones, I love you too," Jim says softly. His hand travels to cup Leonard's cheek and he hopes his blue eyes look as honest and true as Leonard's always do. So bright and earnest; shaped like almonds. Shining chocolate and emerald, navy and amber; shining just for Jim.

Jim's eyes are hollow. Or they used to be. He's quite sure that Leonard is starting to fill him with life again, to put substance back in the shell that addiction and sorrow had carved out the insides from and left jaded. Discarded.

He doesn't feel as lost as he used to. He doesn't feel as emptied. His soul still needs healing, or his psyche or his heart or whatever people are giving most credit to nowadays. His soul will always need healing. He has done himself too much wrong to ever truly be fixed. But Leonard is a doctor, and Jim is finally in safe hands. Careful hands that touch him reverently and caress even the deepest, darkest scars of his past.

"I'm scared," Leonard repeats.

"So am I."

#

Tiberius moves back to the safety of the upstairs sitting room when he hears the clatter of metal and bodies hitting against the kitchen counter. Of course he doesn't need to eavesdrop on his grandson, but he likes to be close to Jim when he can, to make sure the boy isn't getting himself into any trouble.

Tiberius knows about addiction. Drugs, drink, sex, gambling; you name it, he's seen it. He grew up in Chicago for Christ's sake. Marrying his wife and moving to Iowa might have been a change of pace but you never forget the sight of your father fucking hookers with the money he'd won from a week's gambling binge. All men have their vices; Jim's is cocaine and sometimes Johnnie Walker.

And love. The fairy-tale, heterosexual kind that Jim's never going to have in current climate America. He wants an easy life, a life full of Sunday mornings and lunch dates. He's addicted to the thought of holding hands, obsessed with the idea that one day, one day soon, he will able to walk down the street with Leonard and two little children, just like Sam and Aurelan, and no one will bat an eyelid.

Sometimes Tiberius curses Samuel for his picture-book life. The brothers adore each other more than most brothers do. But Tiberius can see the envy in Jim's eyes. Jim yearns for that freedom. And the envy turns to self-loathing in his gut, twists and turns until Jim's innocent idealism turns into bitter tears and white powder.

Leonard might be the knight in shining armour, Tiberius hasn't decided yet—he hasn't even had a real conversation with the doctor yet. But when he does, he won't be holding back. If Leonard hurts Jim, sends him back down the path of ruin, then Tiberius will no doubt spend his last remaining years in a federal prison.

So yes, Tiberius may be guilty of a little eavesdropping—he calls it being a good grandfather—but he certainly won't be sticking around for the R-rated portion of the day. There's only so much his old heart can take. He's almost eighty, for Christ's sake.

He hears a bowl smash against the mahogany floor followed by a moan, and he smirks.

#

Winona sips her coffee and reads over a speech she is supposed to be delivering to the Justices of the Supreme Court. She makes her edits and sets her cup aside, turning back to the nearly blank page in her desk. The resignation letter she has yet to write.

Sam wasn't particularly thrilled at her announcement, even when she told him that if she were elected he would be her Chief of Staff. He doesn't need the hassle, she realises, not with a new baby on the way. But this will put him right where he needs to be, in the best possible position should he ever want to run for President himself. It's something he's dreamed of since he was a child bouncing on his father's knee.

Christopher thinks it's a brilliant idea. But then, he'll remain in his position as Vice President either way, so he really has nothing to lose.

_Dear Mr President,_

It's all she has right now. She doesn't know how to tell Alexander she disagrees with almost every decision he makes. She doesn't know how to politely phrase the fact that working under his government is like pulling teeth. Her own teeth. It's like shooting newborn lambs and culling ducklings. His authority will turn America into a grey and barren war zone and she cannot sit by and let it happen.

She's pretty sure she can't say any of that last part.

Winona cannot wait for this day to be over.

"Mom," Sam says as he enters her office and sets down a file, "the British Prime Minister is on hold. He wanted to speak to Marcus but Alexander said to put it through to you."

"Of course he did," Winona scoffs. "Asshole."

She composes herself, taking a few deep breaths, before setting down her pen and answering the telephone.

"Montgomery," she greets. She's always liked the man; he's got a big heart and a brain and has actually done more for Britain from his home in Aberdeen than anyone who lived in Downing Street ever did. He's unconventional. She likes that.

Alexander Marcus does not.

#

Leonard leaves just after five. He's working a double shift from tomorrow afternoon onwards and then has an entire week off due to renovations in his neurology ward. He wants to spend most of it with Jim, but Jocelyn has been suggesting a weekend trip to Seattle or Prague or somewhere else Leonard would much rather take Jim.

It hasn't always been like this; once upon a time there lived a man who really did love the woman he married. He tried with all his heart to make it last. He wanted to have a happily ever after, wanted Jocelyn to be his queen. Turns out he's more of a queen than she is.

Not that he hasn't always known. He knew he was gay by the time he hit the tenth grade when he joined the cross country team and started to let his eyes wander places he definitely shouldn't have wanted them to wander. So he asked Jocelyn Darnell to the Spring Fling and hoped he'd be cured of all errant thoughts.

He tried so hard to be a good boyfriend that for a while it seemed to go away. He didn't actively want to have sex with Joce, but he didn't mind kissing her and he liked it when she threaded her arm through his and leaned into him. He fell in love with Jocelyn, or as close as he ever imagined he'd get to love, and he made her a promise. He made vows. He wants to be an honourable man. He doesn't want to break those vows. But he was eighteen and stupid for ever thought he could bury his homosexuality under the coverlet of their marriage bed. It isn't something that will rot away to nothing.

Jim proved that.

Jim was one of the first men Leonard ever felt immediate attraction to. He had been standing in the ballroom of his father's house, at a function for some backwards thinking electoral candidate. He saw Jim, a glass of Johnnie Walker in one hand, thumb and finger of the other nervously rubbing together. In that moment Jim was everything Leonard had never hoped to have. He was sexy and daring; and seeing him in that black shirt, fitted perfectly over lithe muscle and a slender frame, Leonard wanted him.

He turned out to be quite witty too, and intelligent.

And fucking _superb_ at giving head.

He didn't expect to fall in love with Jim. At first he was just opening himself to the needs he'd otherwise denied himself the whole of his life. He was also cheating on his wife and the guilt and shame left him feeling more bitter than even the best sex could counteract.

And sex with Jim is always the best.

But then something in their dynamic shifted. Leonard walked in on Jim, in his penthouse apartment, doing bumps of coke on his glass coffee table. He didn't want a drug addict. He couldn't. But he did want Jim, and one didn't have to mean the other.

That night, Leonard realised he loved Jim and that it wasn't something that was just going to stop. He had fallen down the rabbit hole; he was Alice and Jim was the Caterpillar, smoking pot and asking Leonard confusing questions to which he didn’t know the answers. As Alice, all Leonard was trying to do was find the right fit. Not too big, not too small. Just the size of himself, whatever and whoever that is.

Now, Jim goes to AA meetings three times a week and only drinks dessert wine. Mostly because he hates the stuff. Leonard tries to abstain too, apart from when he and Jocelyn argue and he takes a few sups from the Bourbon bottle.

They're doing okay now, Jim and Leonard. They'll be doing even better when Leonard comes out. Or at least that's the theory. His parents will hate him, he'll be a divorcée before he's thirty, he'll give up his attempts at a nuclear family... But he'll be able to hold his head up high, knowing he's being completely truthful for once. He'll be able to kiss the back of Jim's hand in public, and feed him bites of soufflé  when they go out for a meal.

He'll be able to live.

#

When Winona gets home Jim is still clearing things away in the kitchen. It's 19:57, and Winona hasn't seen Jim cleaning anything for quite some time. It's something he does when he's anxious. Her eyes immediately search out a bottle or a bag of powder or pills. But when Jim turns around, looks into her eyes and offers her a small smile, she knows he's sober.

"What's all this?" she asks, taking the cloth from his hands. "You'll pull the finish of the cabinets if you keep scrubbing like that."

"Bones was over," Jim starts, blushing, "we made a bit of a mess and while I was cleaning that up I thought I might as well go the whole way."

"You're worried about something," she murmurs, lifting her hand to cup his cheek.

"He's going to come out," Jim breathes. "Finally it's all gonna be out in the open."

"What do you mean by 'all'?" Winona questions.

"He's going to tell his wife, his parents. He's gonna be _out_ , mom. To everyone. We're actually going to be together, you know, not some filthy secret." Jim grins. He looks so pleased she almost can't bear to say anything in response. She doesn't want to crush him; he's already so fragile.

"Honey… _Jimmy_ , you can't let him come out yet," she says, keeping his eyes on her by rubbing her thumb over his cheekbone.

"What? Why?"

"Because I'm running for president," she explains, giving him a moment to take it in. "If Leonard comes out that's his own issue but he can't tie himself to you, not yet. His social circle will explode when he tells them. I can't have you labelled as a home-wrecker; the campaign won't be able to take that kind of heat."

" _Heat_?" Jim repeats, "Mom, this is my life we're talking about."

"I know, Jimmy, and I'm sorry," she insists. "This just isn't the right time."

"For _you_ ," he spits.

"For any of us," she corrects, "this campaign is going to draw a lot of press, we need to keep low profiles. No scandals."

"How can you be so selfish?" he shoots back, voice sounding hollow. In that moment, Jim looks broken and hurt and frail, like he’s had the rug pulled out from under him. She's succeeded again, setting Jim's happiness aside in favour of her career. _Well done_ , Winona, she thinks, trying to reach out to take his hand. He flinches away from her, pulling her other hand from his cheek and stepping back against the counter.

"It would be selfish not to run," is all Winona says.

Jim just stares at her, looking on in abject horror.

"You never think of us," Jim whispers.

"I always think of you," she counters. "I want you to live in a better world."

"I want to be able to be out with my boyfriend.”

"Right now, Jim, he's still just someone else's husband."


	3. Propriety vs. Proprietary

_Someone else's husband._

Jim thinks about his mother’s words all night, and all of the next day. He doesn't get out of bed because he's afraid of what he might do. He sends Leonard three too-long text messages telling him everything: that his mother is running for presidency, that he can't tell anyone his mother’s running for presidency, that if he comes out he can't say a word about Jim, that Jim misses him like crazy, that he hopes the clinic isn't too busy, that he needs to see him. But he doesn't tell Leonard why. He doesn't tell Leonard he's feeling on the rocks. It's not fair, not when he's working for eighteen hours with all of two one-hour nap breaks and he can't do a damned thing about how Jim's feeling apart from worry.

_I'll be over as soon as my shift is finished. I'll sleep at yours and tell Joce I stayed at the hospital. We can talk about everything then. Don't worry, Jim. Please. I love you._

That's the text message Jim receives. _Please_. He can hear it in Leonard's voice, an unspoken urging for Jim to stay away from the liquor cabinet.

Jim calls his sponsor, Gaila, but she doesn't pick up. Then he remembers she's on a weekend retreat, to India or Tibet—some place with a lot of history—and she won't be back for a day or two. He can’t remember. He can hold on until then, though.

Or he can try, at least.

"You need to get up out of bed, kid," Tiberius says, opening the door and letting in a bright stream of light from the hallway. He's always thought his grandfather was a kind of God, and now, with that halo of light around his head, Jim's even more convinced.

"I can't," Jim whispers, not wanting to sound as weak as he does but helpless against it. "I don't know what I might do."

"I'm here, James," Tiberius assures him. "You ain't gonna do nothing while I'm here."

"I'm scared, Gramps."

"It's okay to be scared." Tiberius inclines his head, considering. He steps into Jim's room and sits at the end of the huge double bed. Jim feels like a child again. But at least he feels safe.

"You call your sponsor?" he asks.

"She's away.”

"Can I help?"

"Just don't let me call a drug dealer, huh?" Jim tries to laugh, but fails. "Fuck, Grandpa, why'd Mom have to do this now?"

"Your mother does whatever the hell she likes, but I think she also does what she thinks is best," Tiberius admits.

"For _who_?" Jim demands.

"For everyone. That was their vision. Her and your father. To make the world a better place, more accepting and less ignorant. She wants to give you and Sam every opportunity in the world. She just doesn't think she's made the world worth it yet."

"She's only one woman," Jim whispers, confused and a little bit frightened.

"No, kid, she's your mom." Tiberius shrugs. "You and your fella can wait a little bit longer."

"It’s too long; it’s nearly two years until the election," Jim counters, shaking his head. "Why would he stick around that long, hiding in the shadows like we're two lepers?"

"If he loves you, why wouldn't he?"

"There's only so much battering we can take, Gramps." Jim shrugs. “If it were him postponing, you'd tell me to get the hell out of there, that he was just using me because it's convenient."

"I never tell you what to do. I only ever advise," Tiberius smirks.

"What if I can't handle this? What if I fuck up?"

"Don't even let it be an option," Tiberius states, "and you won't."

But it is an option. Right now all Jim wants to do is numb himself with as much coke as he can get his hands on. Deep down inside him, if he's honest, it's all he ever wants.

#

Christopher and Winona take lunch together in a small French restaurant they doubt many people would stumble upon. They start off talking about campaign tactics and strategy but they soon end up talking about Jim and where this campaign might lead him.

"It'll make or break him, Win," Christopher says simply. "Jim doesn't do things half-assed. He doesn't do middle ground."

"I always manage to ruin him," she sighs, ruefully. "I can never just let him grab his chance at happiness."

"He reminds you of George, and you resent him for it."

"I don't resent Jim; he's my son," Winona bites out. "I love him."

"No doubt about it," Christopher agrees, "but you resent him too, looking into those blue eyes and seeing them wither away. It's like looking at George all over again. You fuck him up as payback to George for leaving you. Or maybe you resent him because you see him as the life George never had, the life that was taken from him, and you see him throwing it away."

"You're not my therapist, Chris," Winona huffs. "Enough with the psychoanalytical bullshit."

"Okay.” He pauses, taking a breath and changing tack. “Have you handed in your letter yet?"

"I'm just getting Sam to look over it, make sure I haven't been too out of line, then I'll sign it and head home." She shrugs. "I'll miss that place."

"You won't be gone long."

#

Jim is still in bed, sheets pulled up over his head, when Leonard calls.

"You need to sleep," Jim says upon answering his phone. Leonard isn't getting that many breaks on his mammoth shift and he needs to make the best use of them.

"I need to make sure you're okay," Leonard corrects.

"I'm in bed," Jim says. "I'm clean."

"I love you.”

"I love you too," Jim whispers, tears suddenly stinging at his eyes.

"I'll be home soon, just another ten hours," Leonard says, voice reassuring and heavy, like the duvet wrapped around Jim's body.

"Home?" Jim repeats, confused.

"Wherever you are, darlin', that's home."

Jim lets those words wash over him. Wherever his _wife_ is, that should be home to Leonard. But it isn't, because he loves Jim. As flawed and desolate as he is, Leonard's love for him is unwavering. Jim wants to scream it from the rooftops. He _can_ be loved. He _can_ make someone happy. There is space in him for someone to store their heart and their love and Leonard has so, _so_ , much of it that Jim is full to bursting.

He puts his phone under his pillow and lets Leonard's declaration of love strengthen his resolve. He doesn't have any of his old contacts on his new phone anyway. He can do this; he just has to make it through a few more hours.

Jim pulls the duvet back over his head and wills himself to sleep; when it doesn't work he goes to the bookshelf by his desk and pulls out one of his old reliable reads: a battered paperback copy of _Peter Pan_. He'll read about the Lost Boys and their leader who flies through the night sky with a little green-dressed fairy at his side. He'll read about Hook and the crocodile, the mermaids... He'll read about Wendy. Good, wholesome Wendy.

He'll pretend to be a kid again, safe in a world before substance abuse.

And maybe he'll find the tranquility of sleep. Maybe those well-read words can lull his eyes closed, can coax his over-zealous, buzzing brain into switching off for the evening.

He can't crack if he's asleep.

And he really doesn't want to crack.

#

It's just after ten and Winona still isn't home. Tiberius has called Sam's house and had to have Aurelan explain to him that they're working late on the campaign. They're all at Christopher's house. Winona resigned this evening, effective immediately. Alexander practically threw her from the White House like a dirty little harlot. It will be all over the news in the morning and so they need to write statements and get their plans together. Christopher is going to be running with her, which means Jonathan Archer will be running alongside Marcus.

They won't be home for a few more hours yet; they want to make sure they get the best spin on the situation for the press in the morning.

Of course Aurelan would be the one to tell Tiberius. No one else thinks to tell him anything.

"Thank you, dear," he says. "You take care of yourself now, and remember you can drop Peter around here whenever you like. You're not on your own."

"It feels like it sometimes," she whispers, "but thank you, Tiberius. Good night."

He cuts the call and dials a second number. Winona answers quicker than he thought she would.

"Tiberius?" She sounds confused; he supposes that's because he never calls her and she's long since assumed he has no idea how to use this new-fangled technology. He has them all fooled, he snorts to himself. "Is everything all right?"

"Jim's fine," he says, cutting through her cool, calm, collected bullshit. That boy is one of the only things she worries about. Not to say she doesn't worry about her eldest, she just has to exert less energy doing so; it's more of a subconscious action. The innate parental instinct. With Jim, though, it's a constant buzz inside her head, tapping away at her like a cuckoo on hard bark.

She can't lose him again. Not now that he's doing so well.

"Well," Tiberius amends, "fine is probably an overstatement. Six months clean and he's almost climbing the walls again. He's been in bed all day, and if he walks outta his bedroom he'll walk right out of this house. I just thought you might like an update."

"I was going to call him."

"I don't think that's wise, Win," Tiberius admits. "I just didn't know you were gonna be out so late, but I called Aurelan and she explained. I hope things are going well, and give Samuel my love," he adds. "I'm going to bed."

"Of course," Winona says, and Tiberius can imagine her pursed-lipped nodding. "Night, Tiberius."

Tiberius checks in on Jim before he heads to his own room. The window is open and the curtains billow with cinematic flair and drama. Jim is perched on the window sill, smoking a cigarette. He reminds Tiberius of James Dean and Elvis Presley and all those other young men whose stars burned too bright too quickly, quicker than their heads could catch up with, and ended up blazing all the way out of the night sky, smouldering into nothingness, just old sepia photos and whiskey-dulled memories.

"I've got pot," Tiberius announces.

"What?" Jim scoffs, sounding outraged but looking more than a little amused. Of course a man who used to be a representative of Des Moines and a damn senator, who is verging on eighty, would be offering his drug addict grandson marijuana.

"It's medicinal," Tiberius says with a shrug. "Do you want it?"

"Grandpa..."

"Don't _Grandpa_ me kid, I'm asking you a question. Do you want it?"

"Yes." Jim nods, hysteric and numb at the same time, desperate and nonchalant. Jim doesn't even usually smoke dope. He never liked it growing up because of the aftertaste and the way the scent of it clung to him. It was an easy giveaway.

"Shall I go and fetch it then?"

Jim considers the question. Tiberius can see him slowly understanding what this exchange is, what it's supposed to lead to. He pauses, stealing a glance at his Grandfather before looking away again.

"No." Jim’s voice is hesitant to start, almost as if he’s phrasing a question. But the ‘o’ is firm. Decided. He may not be able to look Tiberius in the eye—because he knows they lack conviction—but his voice is strong, and maybe that’s enough. Tiberius sets a hand on Jim’s shoulder and smiles.

"You can beat this, Jimmy," Tiberius assures him. "It's never gonna go away. You're gonna wake up some nights and wanna tear your insides out for one line. But it'll never be just one with you, James. You're an addict. You give into one line of blow and it'll all come crashing down on you. But you're strong, and you're on the right road now. When you think you want it, just ask yourself if you want everything else that comes with it, okay?"

"Yes, sir." Jim nods, exhaling slow and steady, pushing air out of his lungs like he wishes he could do with all the bad thoughts in his head.

"You promise me that?”

"I promise."

"You're gonna do good, kid." Tiberius sounds certain—not that Jim’s quite sure why. Stepping closer, he plucks the cigarette from between Jim's fingers, taking a drag before he stumps it out in the ashtray. "Now do what your grandfather tells you, and go to bed."

#

When Jim wakes up, Leonard is in the bed with him. It's still dark, but only because the heavy velvet curtains are all drawn and the door is closed. Leonard's body is warm, always is, and Jim presses himself back into it, trying to steal some of his heat. Leonard shifts, securing his arm around Jim's waist and effectively cocooning the smaller man. Maybe Leonard is Jim's chrysalis, helping Jim turn himself from an ugly, helpless caterpillar into a butterfly; helping him find his wings and flutter into the next stage of his life.

"Y'okay?" Leonard murmurs into the crook of Jim's neck. His voice is still rough with sleep, like a drunken slur. Jim smiles.

"Go back to sleep," he whispers softly. "I'm fine now."

Leonard tightens his hold around Jim and steals a kiss from the side of his jaw. It's just a dry press of lips but it lingers regardless. Leonard’s kisses always do. Jim can still feel every touch of that plush Cupid's bow across every inch of his body; from their first kiss when Leonard pulled Jim off of his knees and kissed him so hard Jim thought he might stop breathing, to the quick pecks that Leonard is obsessed with littering all over Jim's abdomen, and lower.

Those lips are almost as much a part of him as they are of Leonard.

It's a healing touch, Jim thinks, just like his surgeon's hands and his gentle words; they surround Jim, they revive him.

"'s half nine," Leonard says, "'m awake."

"Hmmm, you sound it," Jim teases. He turns around so his chest is pressed against Leonard's, entwining their calves. He lifts his thigh slightly to nudge in between Leonard's legs, eliciting a sleepy moan with the friction. "Are you awake enough for this?" Jim whispers playfully.

"Let me just lie on my stomach and you can have your wicked way with me," Leonard grumbles, laughing when Jim's thigh hitches higher and he ends up on top, straddling Leonard's pelvis.

"I want you on your back." Jim grins. "But don’t fall asleep again; you had your chance and you didn't take it."

Leonard's amused chuckling doesn't subside until Jim's hands are searching out his cock and a bottle of lube and pulling at his underwear, shoving them down and off and circling a wet finger around Leonard's hole. Then Leonard is just a pliant mess of little breathy moans and gasps as he tries to pull his thighs to his chest.

" _Jim_." His breath catches in his throat as he swallows around another groan. Jim's hands slide up the backs of Leonard’s legs to keep his thighs in place.  He shuffles slightly—having already moved lower down Leonard’s body—until he’s lying with his chest to the mattress. Jim dips his head to place slow open-mouthed kisses against the inside of Leonard’s thighs, gliding his tongue along crease where the backs of his legs meet his ass cheeks before nipping at the tender skin.

Then he pulls back slightly, pressing his cheek into the hard muscle of Leonard's high, just breathing in the smell of sleep and antiseptic that clings to the soft skin. He wishes they could stay like this forever, preserved in a moment of quiet calm, of earnest love. The morning seems to collapse around them as they make love. The movement of Jim's hips is slow and graceful. When he's inside Leonard it seems like one of the only times that Jim is able to do anything carefully or with measure. Their bodies move like two entities that have some sort of innate connection; an ebb and flow between them, give and take.

Leonard's thighs tighten around Jim, knees clenching his ribs, and he comes with a surprised sound, like alongside his orgasm he gets some sort of revelation. Jim wonders what it might be. But he's thrusting to his own climax and Leonard's body is trembling and shuddering around him and he can't hold it off any longer and—

"Oh, _fuck_."

"I'm nearly thirty, Jim." Leonard smirks. "I'm gonna need a few more minutes."

"Oh, you're so funny," Jim says dryly, scoffing. He rolls off of Leonard but immediately curls back into the other man's body, nuzzling Leonard's shoulder with the bridge of his nose.

Then the door to the bedroom opens and Winona steps in. She doesn't realise there's anyone but Jim in the room at first, but then she must see the dark mess of hair beside Jim’s shoulder because the shock is clear on her face. She steps back again quickly, pointedly turning her head so that she doesn’t have to look at them. Particularly not Leonard, Jim thinks.

" _Mom_?" Jim balks, pulling the duvet up to cover his torso. He sits up quickly and scowls. "What, we don't knock in this house anymore, is this new legislation that you'll impose when you're president?" he snaps.

"Jim!" she scolds. "We're not announcing that yet."

"Bones already knows, Mom. I had to tell him when I explained why we couldn't come out yet.”

"And I imagine you've told him how delicate the situation currently is and how letting this slip may put me in a very compromising position," Winona states, teeth gritted.

"This is gonna hit the press the minute you resign, Mom. Marcus isn't going to protect you," Jim sneers. "And Bones isn't exactly a staunch Republican; he's not going to go selling your stories to the party."

"He still has loyalties, Jim."

"To your son," Leonard agrees. "I haven't said a word, Winona, and I don't plan to."

"You need to get up and get dressed, Jim. They're sending press to the house. He needs to go home.”

This is too much. This isn’t want Jim wants anymore. This isn’t his life. He purses his lips and sighs.

"I think I'm going to move back into the penthouse.”

"Jim… are you ready for that?" Winona asks, frowning.

"I think it'll be a hell of a lot less triggering than living here.” He sneers at her, but then his features soften again. "I'm sorry," he mutters. "I'm on edge, I just—I can't have you here dictating who and what I can be. I know you don't mean to," he says before she can, "but I know what you're like when you get into something. Everything has to be perfect. And I'm just... not."

"Jim—"

"Please," Jim cuts in. "I'm as ready as I'm ever gonna be, and I have to do this on my own now. I'm nearly twenty-four for Christ's sake. You need to focus on the campaign. You gotta win, Mom. Marcus hasn't got a clue how to run this country."

"I'll tell the press you're out at the moment," Winona says with a nod, "and I'll help you get your stuff together after the interviews."

"Thanks." Jim smiles.

"I'm sorry, Jimmy, for a lot of things I've done in the past. I'm sorry.”

"I know you are. I am too. We've both made mistakes."

"I'll leave you two be." She nods at Jim, and then his bed companion. "Leonard," she finishes, keeping her tone polite.

"Good luck with the press," he offers, letting Jim entwine their fingers under the duvet.

Jim has a feeling they're all gonna need a little luck.

And not just with the press.

#

Winona has come to the realisation that she has grossly underestimated Leonard McCoy. She has underestimated his respect for, and attachment to, her son; she has underestimated his political savvy; and she has underestimated his ability to fit into their tight-knit unit with grace and aplomb, despite the rarity of his presence. He seems to have them all worked out. She finds it fascinating, and in some ways quite exhilarating, for Jim to have found someone who knows and loves him so well despite his baggage, and perhaps, to some extent, because of it. It is unsettling too, though; she feels as if he might, at any moment, say or do something that will give their whole game away, unwrap the ribbon on the haughtily damasked, pristine box of the Kirk family. The box will open and out will come every weakness they scramble to hide. Most of them are hers. He will reveal her to the world, capture her failure in his ever-changing hazel eyes and report it back to the nation.

He will _know_ her.

Her fear of that cripples her.

#

Sam offers to stay and help Jim move his stuff. Really, all Jim has to do is pack up his clothes and personal effects—the penthouse is still fully furnished, the way Jim left it when he moved out six months ago after his latest session in rehab—but Sam would like to be around when his brother reenters the apartment. It’s a place that holds so many memories and could trigger any number of reactions.

Jim's unpredictable at the best of times. Sam remembers the first time Jim went missing, running away to San Francisco at sixteen so that he could be as gay as he pleased in the clubs of the Castro. He came back three days later having made it as far as Cleveland, Ohio before realising he might not have been completely ready for the world and scoring a couple of grams of cocaine instead with what was left of his allowance.

He came home bouncier than a five year old hyper on chocolate fudge cake and cola. But it wasn't Winona who sat with him through his come down. It wasn't Winona who held him while he cried and shook and threw up into one of their grandmother's antique vases. Throwing up into a family heirloom—that's so Jim Kirk it almost kills.

He only wishes the memory could be a funny one. A stupid mistake. One they laugh about now that they're men in their twenties. But it sent Jim spiraling down a road he didn't know how to control, a road that doesn't seem to have an end.

Sometimes, Sam looks at Jim and still sees that clammy, _sobbing_ sixteen year old. He wishes he knew what he could have done better. He wishes he could go back and change it somehow.

It surprises Sam that Leonard also stays to help Jim pack, and actually has clothes and items of his own that need to be moved to a new home.

"I didn't know you had so many sleepovers," Sam says, trying to sound nonchalant.

"I'm here as much as I can be," Leonard says. They've never really got on. Sam wants more for Jim, more than the stigma of a straight man and a broken home.

"Sam, don't start," is all Jim says.

Jim's made his choices and he has to live with them.

Sam's starting to realise he can't save his little brother.

It's a weight off his shoulders, but there is already a new one immediately heaped on them to replace it.


	4. Second Time Around

The penthouse is cold and dark. Jim used to call it 'The Playhouse' but just the thought of the name makes his stomach roil and his heart race. He swallows back the fear, tries to clench his eyes shut against the barrage of memories. The last thing he wants is to turn around and say _you remember when you found me close to ODing over there, Sam? Lucky you came round to borrow that shirt, huh?_

Sam pats him on the shoulder.

"I'll order a pizza or something," he offers.

"I'm not hungry," Jim says with a defiant shake of the head.

"Jim," Sam and Leonard warn simultaneously, heads snapping round to stare at each other.

"You'd get on, you know," Jim says, "if you didn't bitch about each other so much."

"You bitch about me?" Sam asks, indignant.

"You coddle him," Leonard says by way of answer.

"So do you!"

"I'm his lover." Leonard shrugs.

Sam just scoffs. Jim looks from his brother to Leonard and smirks. They're polar opposites; just like he and Leonard, he supposes. Leonard is handsome in a different way to the two Kirks. He doesn't have the rough model glamour of Jim nor the air of Prince Charming that Sam carries. Leonard's features are soft for the most part, big muddy eyes that have flecks of gemstones in them. They're earnest doe eyes. He's got high cheekbones and a square-shaped face, he keeps himself clean shaven and his skin is soft. But his jaw is sharp, and so is the line of his nose; his nostrils are almost serpentine in shape, which certainly doesn't mirror the character of the man they belong to.

Maybe it's the contrast, Jim thinks. That's what draws him to Leonard. He can safely look at Leonard and see nothing of himself. And so he can only see good.

Leonard is noble and wholesome, and Sam's told Jim before that they're a good looking couple.

But Jim knows that Sam still isn't convinced that Leonard will make the grade, even if they have been sleeping together for eight months and more than undeniably in love for four.

Sometimes Jim wonders if Sam thinks they're faking it, or at least that Leonard is.

Jim's not naive; he knows how much his brother loves him. Sometimes Sam is more like a father than a sibling. He's always looked out for Jim, always tried to protect him from the world. Sam feels like a failure in that respect, Jim knows. But he isn't. Jim would be dead if it weren’t for Sam. Jim also knows why Sam doesn't entirely trust Leonard: the man is married, and there's no escaping that fact. If he can cheat on his wife of ten years, then one day he could cheat on Jim.

But Leonard won't. Jim isn't Jocelyn and their relationship is completely different.

For one thing, it's based on mutual love, respect and attraction.

#

The minute Jim leaves, Winona wants to call his cell and make sure he's okay. Even with Sam to act as chaperone and Leonard there to hold his hand, she can't keep her nerves at bay.

She pours herself a vodka and diet coke. She sips at it and thinks of every drop of alcohol she had to pour down the drain when Jim first moved back into the house. He's come so far since then. Maybe he's ready. Maybe this time he can make it.

He has to try sooner or later, and she has to trust him. She has to have faith.

Leonard won't let her son go back there. He won't let Jim slip back into that grotty darkness. He might have started fucking a man who lived his life in the gutter, but she's pretty sure Leonard McCoy fell in love with the strong man Jim became once he was sober.

Jim's always a pretty boy, but when he's clean he's an intelligent and funny boy too.

She'll dream of drugs tonight. She knows she will.

She just prays that the drugs stay in her dreams.

#

Leonard slides out of bed at 02:11. He shucks back into his pants and writes a note, placing it on Jim's pillow.

_You can do this darlin'._   
_Call me when you wake up._   
_I love you._

Now though, Leonard needs to go home to his wife and lie about how he got stuck in surgery and slept in the on-call room because he was dead to the bone.

He has to look her in the eye and watch her swallow that horse shit. It might even be worse because she doesn't expect it. Their marriage is by no means perfect. They're not in love anymore and both of them know it, but they make such a good show of being in love that Leonard's pretty sure Jocelyn would never pin him with infidelity.

He hasn't seen his wife in more than two days. He's quite sure he couldn't go that long without seeing Jim. He might have to this week though. If he's not coming out then he might have to try and be more tentative with his family, stock up some brownie points before he drops the bomb.

The road is quiet when he drives home. So peaceful. It makes him wonder at the storm yet to come. What horrors lay in his future? He's always been a cynic. Things will go wrong and life stabs everyone in the back repeatedly. You'll bleed out before you get your happy ending and that's just the way the world works.

Jocelyn is sitting at the kitchen table when he returns home. Her eyes are bloodshot and there is vomit on her sweatshirt.

"Joce?" he questions, voice tentative and gentle.

"Oh, baby," she says, surprised. Jocelyn pulls her hair back into a ponytail and wipes her face. "You're late home. I—I'm fine. I just, I was feeling anxious and I—"

"I thought we were past this," Leonard whispers, walking to her and settling his hands under her elbows, pulling her to him. They might not be in love anymore, but Leonard will always love Jocelyn McCoy. He can’t help but care for the woman the world knows as his teenage sweetheart. "I'll call Liz in the morning. we'll get this sorted again."

Jocelyn has always worried over her weight. Her family moved from Virginia to Georgia when Jocelyn started high school because of a promotion her father had received—her parents went back to Arlington, Virginia when the couple left for college in Mississippi, and that's where the young McCoy couple has since settled. Leonard met Jocelyn in their freshman year, and sure, Jocelyn had been a bit of a chubby girl, but by the time her mother had fully immersed her in the debutante beauty pageant scene at sixteen, the girl was only a few pounds shy of being clinically underweight.

Jocelyn cultivated her bulimia to keep her mother happy; she maintained it because she didn't know how to stop. Leonard didn't find out until he was halfway through med school. He’d been twenty-four and he'd never even heard bulimia nervosa said _aloud_ before.

He thought he'd gotten her help and that she'd gotten it under control.

Obviously he was wrong.

"It was just once," she insists. "Just once, please Leo."

"Was it?" Leonard asks, trying to look stern but failing, he holds her closer, kisses her forehead.

"No," she whispers. "It's been a few months. I thought I was pregnant. I was so happy, Leo. I thought maybe it would help us get back to how we were. But it was just a scare, the test was negative. I—I couldn't help it. I just— I binged so badly and—"

"Pregnancy?"

"It was negative Leo," she murmurs, clinging to him. "I thought... But I was wrong."

"We'll fix this, Joce," he promises her. "I'm sorry I haven't been around," he says, and his stomach clenches. God, what an asshole he is. "I've got the week off now. It'll be better."

He lets go of Jocelyn feeling winded. He's got a wife who's just fallen out of recovery with an eating disorder and a boyfriend who's on tentative hooks with his cocaine addiction.

Boy, does he know how to pick them.

He snorts bitterly.

_What a fucking day._

#

The alarm goes off at eight and Jim rolls over expecting a warm body. There isn't one. There is a crinkle of paper and a cold space but Leonard is long gone.

He reads the note and rolls back over to pick up his phone from the bedside table. It rings out. So Jim redials. But Leonard doesn't pick up. In fact, he just cuts the call instead.

Perhaps Leonard's having breakfast with Jocelyn and trying to play at happy families. Jim tries not to resent that part of Leonard's life, tries not to resent Jocelyn. He's getting the better end of the deal, really; he's getting Leonard in the long run.

_Joce isn't well, Jim. I'm gonna need to take her to see a doctor. I'll call you later._

That makes sense, Jim thinks. Leonard is taking care of his sick wife. Hopefully it's just the flu, nothing too serious that can be treated with an antibiotic. There's something that doesn't settle well inside Jim, though. It's probably nothing. But he has this feeling: something's wrong. He doesn't know what it is. But it's not right.

_I hope she's okay. I'll speak to you later._

The text seems like a replica of the hypocritical TV bullshit Jim never wanted to be a part of. Jocelyn isn't his friend; he's fucking her husband for Christ's sake. But he wouldn't wish her any harm either. He wouldn't wish harm on anybody, but especially not someone Leonard still cares about so deeply.

If he didn't care it might be easier to file for divorce.

But Leonard isn't just going to lose a marriage and a wife out of his divorce; he's going to lose one of the best friends he's ever had.

They should never have gotten married in the first place, that much is obvious. Neither of them are happy, and haven't been for about eight years of their ten year stint, but one thing Jim knows for certain is that Jocelyn has always been a good friend to Leo.

Their relationship should never have been corrupted by romance.

#

Elizabeth Dehner's office is just as white and clinical as any hospital room. Leonard feels at home in consultation rooms like these; the clean cut lines and the pristine finish offer a sense of calm that the blood and gore of surgery certainly doesn't. But Liz only calls him in for a moment before sending him away again so she can speak with Jocelyn alone.

He should probably take the time to call Jim, to make sure he's okay. But Jocelyn puked her guts up last night and he wasn't there to stop her. He hasn't been there to see this decline and to support her. He's been fucking a pretty blond Democrat.

He feels so confused, so torn, and being in the mental health ward of the hospital makes him think that maybe he should see a therapist. Leonard McCoy isn't inexperienced with stress: he graduated high school a year early, has suffered through his residency, a neurological trauma fellowship... He's lived under the reign of two conservative parents in Georgia, and neither Mississippi nor Virginia seems to have been much better in the regards to wrestling with his sexuality.

The border between Maryland and Virginia, the gulf known as the District of Colombia, has always separated Jim from Leonard, and he wonders if all this with Jocelyn has just widened it. How is he meant to divorce his wife when she is going through this? He might not be a good man, but he isn't a monster.

He's frightened though; Jim is just as much balanced on a seesaw as Jocelyn is.

_I can't call you yet, but I hope everything's going well. Text me if you need anything._

He types out the text and immediately hates himself. He’d usually say _call me_ , but Leonard couldn't take a call from Jim right now.

His resolve is already weakened as it is.

#

"They want to do a story on you," Winona explains, "about how well you're doing. It's supposed to be a bit of good press. I thought you'd jump at it."

"No press is good press," Jim counters. "And Uhura hates me; have you ever read a single article she's written on me?"

"Yes. Which is why her writing your success story will be all the more effective."

"You just want me to look like a good little boy for your campaign," Jim scoffs.

"It's either that or they'll write some unfounded story of their own making," Winona says. "I just thought you'd want the truth out there."

Jim casts a careful glance at Nyota Uhura: she's a tall, elegant woman. The lines of her body are sleek and while she looks as though she could be the next Naomi Campbell if she so desired, her eyes are stern and unyielding. Jim feels as if they've grown up together. Nyota's been writing about Jim since she was a sophomore in college and Jim's always kept an eye on her work.

She's a talented writer, even if what she has written about him in the past has reduced him to nothing more than a slutty junkie in the eyes of the public. But now she wants to make good? That doesn't make sense to Jim but he knows that his mother is right. If anyone can tell his story with clarity and grace it's Nyota Uhura. She has an unparalleled flair for language and an unmatched skill with communication. The written word is her armoury and artillery. At least this time Jim will be behind her defences.

"I want full disclosure," Nyota declares. "When I ask you a question I want it answered, _on record_."

"You can have family, drugs and money, but you can't have my love life," Jim counters. "Romance and sex are off the cards."

"That might be a good thing," Nyota considers with a smirk. "Deal."

"Then we have an agreement," Winona states, sounding perky. She stands from her perch on Jim's sofa and nods at Nyota. "It was good to finally meet you, Miss Uhura. Don't let Jim give you too much grief."

"There's no fear of that, Madame Secretary.”

"Now's the part where you ask me invasive questions, I suppose?" Jim mutters.

"How about you make me a macchiato first.” She smiles, and Jim can't help but laugh.

"You've got class, Uhura."

"I've spent my career trailing after you, I've learned what not to do.”

"Ouch."

#

She wants to be as honest as she can be, and she knows she's protected by patient confidentiality. Even if her husband is good friends with Liz, Jocelyn knows what she says in this room cannot go any further. So she braces herself. She links the fingers of her two hands and wrings them in her lap.

She inhales.

"It started up again five months ago. I had a pregnancy scare." Jocelyn looks away, she’s nervous and she’s ashamed. She picks at her nails, tongue darting out to wet her bottom lip. But she’s not ready to say it yet. "Can't I just spend another month in a rehabilitation facility like I did when I was twenty four?"

"We need to get to the bottom of what triggered this slip," Liz says gently. "So talk to me about this scare, unexpected or unwanted?"

"It's complicated," Jocelyn whispers.

"I'm a psychiatrist, Jocelyn, I know all about complicated."

"I'm cheating on Leo," Jocelyn blurts, looking horrified by her own admission—because she's actually just said it aloud, or because she's ashamed of the action itself? She isn't sure. "I couldn't be sure... I didn't know who the baby's father was. I felt so _guilty_. I hadn't felt like that since I was a teenager feeling guilty because I couldn't fit into the dresses my mother bought me."

"Go on," Liz prompts, crossing her legs and resting her notepad on her knee.

"When I missed my period I was terrified. It could have been either of them. More likely Clay's if I think about it. Leo and I have been.... distant of late; it's probably my fault. Whenever he's at the hospital I try and see Clay. But I didn't want to have a baby and not know who the father was. I couldn't risk it. I wanted the test to be negative, but when it was I... I felt so empty. I felt like a failure. So I started binging."

"And purging is a bid for control?"

"It always has been. Things were slipping with me and Leo before I started having the affair. I just—I don't want control over _him_ , I want control over the relationship. Sleeping with Clay helped that subside for a while but then when I thought I was pregnant I just couldn't... I was so scared."

Jocelyn feels the tight pull of anxiety in her chest, but she also feels relief. So much relief that she has finally been able to unburden herself.

"Would you like to talk about your affair?" Liz asks.

"Not any more than I already have." Jocelyn shakes her head.

She doesn't want the judgement. She hadn’t meant to, but she's fallen in love with Clay Treadway. Clay is another young man with whom she went to high school. A young man who has also done very well for himself. She hadn’t seen him in over ten years until she’d been in attendance at a little soirée at Leonard's parent's house eight months ago.

She had been drunk and she'd always thought he was a good-looking gentleman.

They fucked in Leonard's old bedroom.

She had thought it was just a one night stand until he had turned up on their doorstep in Virginia three weeks later. They had started and now she can't stop. There’s fire between them that she and Leonard have never had. Leonard is her best friend; Clay might just be the love of her life.

#

Piano music floods through the open dining area. Jim hasn't played in a while, but it comes back to him as naturally as breathing. Nyota had tapped out the outline of her article on her iPad, partaken in a second macchiato and left just after noon.

So he's completely alone now. The house would be silent if he weren’t playing. It's a distraction tactic. He just needs to think about the way his fingers move over the keys, not about his mother and her campaign, not about Leonard and his wife, not about cocaine.

Definitely not about cocaine.

He thinks about what his grandfather said: one line will always lead to more. No matter how much Jim wants one line, he can't. He won't come back from it.

But he really craves it.

He tries to convince himself that today is just a shitty day, that the tingling in his bones is temporary. Tomorrow things will be better. Tomorrow, he'll be one step further away from being a drug addict. He'll be one step closer to as close to freedom as he will ever get. Even if it is only ever a shadow of freedom. Like the wisp of cigar smoke in an old-fashioned jazz bar.

The illusion of freedom is just as good as freedom. Or so Jim hopes.

But if he'll never really be free, then what is the point of pretending?

 _Bones_ , Jim reminds himself.

#

It's late when Nyota gets home. She had stopped off at the office after she left Jim Kirk's apartment and fleshed out her article a little more. Regardless of what she thinks—or used to think—of Jim, he's really turned himself around.

Maybe he'll even go as far as to make good.

Either way she has six weeks to shadow and interview him to write her profile for Enterprise's deluxe Spring edition that drops at the end of April. She's always wanted to make a good story of good news. Usually it's the bad stuff that gains all the hype, but for once she wants to earn prestige and respect for a 'happy ending'. She doesn't need more tales of disaster attached to her portfolio.

Her boyfriend, Spock Grayson, is making some sort of Lebanese dish in their open plan kitchen. The smell is beautiful, just what she needs after such a long day. She shrugs out of her blazer and hangs her handbag over the back of the bedroom doorknob before proceeding into the main hub of their apartment.

Spock greets her with a quirk of his eyebrows and an inquiry about her day's endeavours.

"Jim Kirk was more pleasant than I anticipated," she admits. "I expected to be offered drugs at the door."

"He has been sober for six months; perhaps he wishes to remain so indefinitely," Spock suggests.

"I hope so. He looks so well, really healthy and alive. His love life was a topic he declared off-limits so I'm inclined to assume he has a new man around that he's not ready to talk about yet. Maybe he's high profile too.”

"Or perhaps Mr Kirk wishes to maintain an element of privacy.”

"No doubt it's a bit of both. Now, how was your day at work?"

#

Winona dresses herself promptly and tries not to look back at the man she is leaving alone in bed. It must be well into the early hours of the morning and she had never intended to stay past midnight. They had been celebrating: her resignation, Jim's first day back in the penthouse... Things are really going well, better than Winona could have imagined.

So yes, she had dinner with Christopher, went back to his row house and slept with him. It isn't the most unusual occurrence. They're two consenting adults and she doesn't have anyone to answer to. But she is finding it harder and harder to leave the bed.

Yet Christopher has never asked her to stay.

Their relationship is a complex one; in many ways they function as partners in the business sense, but in umpteen other ways, including the above-par sexual intercourse, they are more representative of a married couple. Hell, Christopher has practically fathered her boys over the last five, perhaps even ten, years.

If their social circle didn't know better they might even be mistaken for a couple on a regular basis.

Winona doesn't think that would be such a bad thing.

But she can't say the same for Christopher. Sometimes he looks at her as if she's something rare and precious, something beautiful, something unreal, like a mermaid gliding through the ocean waves. Other times he looks at her like a confusing puzzle he doesn't have time to figure out. Or maybe he's afraid of what he'll find.

She wants to slip back under the duvet, but she shouldn't. Should she?

It wouldn't be proper for President and Vice President candidates who are running together to be in a relationship. No one would take them seriously.

Is that what she wants? A relationship with Christopher?

Slipping back into bed with him doesn't have to mean that, she might be the wrong side of fifty but that doesn't mean she has to want to settle down.

Wanting to be held isn't wrong either, though.

She pulls back the coverlet and Christopher stirs. He cracks one eye open and smiles at her, shifting back slightly and lifting his arm.

"C'mere, ducky," he whispers.

Winona sleeps soundly for the rest of the night.

#

On the third morning since Jim has moved back into his apartment, he decides that maybe it's time to _text_ Leonard.

_Are you okay? Is Jocelyn okay? We haven't spoken in two days, I'm worried._

Jim doesn't know what more he can say or how else he can phrase himself. He's freaking out. Leonard doesn't go without a couple of hours without checking in unless he's in surgery. But he can't be because his ward is closed for the week—all his patients are being treated in another hospital while they renovate damage that Inova Fairfax hospital took after a recent storm.

_No, Joce's been readmitted to a treatment center. She'll be an inpatient for a two week program. I'm driving her to LA. I'm sorry I haven't called, Jim. Things have been busy._

There isn't an appropriate way to respond to that text, Jim thinks. So he sets his phone down and decides a shower is in order before he can hope to process anything. Treatment centre is a classy way of saying rehab. But Jocelyn has never had any sort of addiction as far as Jim's aware and readmitted clearly means this isn't the first time.

He tries to think of other things. Not a substance addiction but gambling perhaps, or maybe she's a compulsive shopaholic. But neither of those really fit the image of Jocelyn Jim has in his head. She's a sophisticated ex-debutante who majored in Art History in college; she's a beautiful bohemian sort of woman who holds onto old world class just enough to keep their social circle in awe of her.

She appears outwardly perfect. So Jim can only wonder what her vice could be.

_I hope all goes well. Give me a call when you're back in town._

Jim really should get in the shower now because, although he technically has nothing planned today, he'd hate to sit through another wasted day.

_I don't know when I'll be back._

That isn't the response he was expecting. It's curt, standoffish and, frankly, quite rude. Sure, text can't convey tone or attitude but this one does the latter quite effectively. And it's a bad attitude.

Maybe Leonard's making a choice. His wife over Jim. It makes sense.

Jim would choose Jocelyn over himself too.

He feels himself crack.

One tiny crack.

There are a couple of grams of coke under a floorboard in the bedroom. Jim told himself keeping it there was like a test. To see how far he'd come. One day he'd be strong enough to tell his mother it was there and hold her hand while he poured the contents of the bag down the sink.

But if he's honest, in his heart, he always knew it would mean he’d relapse.

And he guesses today is the special day.

He gets a crowbar from the toolbox Sam lent to him when Jim first moved in. He wrenches up the floorboard, the one with the telling white paint stain, and he holds the bag in his palm. The weight is reassuring. The powder looks so white and perfect. Almost clinical in nature.

How can something so pure do so much evil?

Appearances are deceiving.

He scoffs.

Jim knows theirs advice he should be grappling at, a promise he is meant to keep. He sees the steady eyes of his grandfather with deep crow’s feet and darkening eyelids. But Tiberius put his faith in the wrong kid.

_One line._

_Two line._

_Three line._

_Four._


	5. Some Get a Kick from Cocaine

Aurelan picks up the landline from the wall; it's a fifties-style model that she paid far too much for. But she likes it; it's a quirky little touch to her modern suburban home.

"'s Sam there?" Jim slurs. He sounds unwell, like maybe he's running a temperature or something.

 _Fuck_ , she thinks. It's not a temperature; he sounds _high_.

"Sam!" she hollers. He hasn't been doing much of anything outside his study since Winona resigned. It's nice to have him around the house regardless, but it's a damn godsend right now. "It's Jim," she says gravely, handing her husband the receiver.

"Shit," Sam hisses. He already knows what he's going to hear, he's heard it countless times before.

_I've fucked up, big bro._

Aurelan watches as Sam's face turns ashen.

And just like that she knows.

Jim Kirk is off the wagon.

#

Leonard gets a call from Winona at five in the afternoon to call him an asshole and tell him not to bother coming back from his nice little trip to LA with his wife.

"It's not _a nice little trip_ ," he explains. “She's sick."

"Yeah, well, so is Jim," is all she says, abruptly cutting the connection.

Leonard's heart rate picks up immediately; he dials Jim's number, but the phone just rings and rings. Jim always answers, every phone call; he doesn't like to think he's missed anything. But he doesn't answer Leonard's call.

On the third try, Sam answers the phone.

"I knew you weren't gonna pull your shit together," Sam snaps. "He's gone, he's fucking gone. He called me, high as a fucking fighter jet, and now he's gone. Probably back to his old dumping grounds, probably to clubs and bars to fuck random strangers and get high off his face. If he gets hurt, McCoy, I swear to god I'm coming for you."

"He relapsed?" It's all Leonard heard. Not the threats, not the loathing. Just Jim. High.

"And he left his phone here," Sam barks. “We have no idea how to find him."

"I'll be back as soon as I can. I have to stay in LA tonight, I have to but I'll drive home first thing—"

"Don't bother," Sam scoffs. "We'll deal with our problems, you deal with yours."

"I'm sorry, I—"

But Sam hangs up on him, and Leonard doesn't get to make a bid for forgiveness.

He needs to tell Jocelyn. He needs to tell her everything. But she's in such a precarious situation right now. She already feels like the worst person on the planet; how can he live knowing his words will make her feel even worse?

He's not sure he can.

He might not want to be with her anymore, but that doesn't mean he wants to hurt her.

Leonard heads back into the waiting room, Jocelyn is having her first one-on-one counselling session, then she'll have an hour recreation time before she has to go off and do a group session.

Leonard has to tell her. It's better to do it here where she's safe then later when she might relapse again.

When she steps out of the counsellor's office he looks at her, really looks at her, for the first time in a long time. Her loose blonde curls and her pert nose with its slight upturn, her pale blue eyes, yellow around the irises. One day he hopes she will be happy, he hopes she finds someone that can help her build the life she always wanted.

"I need to talk to you," she says, stealing the words right from his mouth.

"Oh?"

"As part of my recovery I need to start letting go of the guilt I'm holding onto, I need to be honest about a few things, Leo. And I just want to say I'm sorry."

"Joce, no—"

"Please let me finish," she urges, taking hold of his left hand, fingers tracing over his wedding band. "I'm—I'm having an affair. It started eight months ago at that gala we were at for the representative your father's supporting. Do you remember Clay Treadway? From school? We got talking, I was drunk... I don't know where you slipped away to—"

"I was being blown around the back of the house by a man named Jim Kirk," Leonard breathes, disbelief colouring his voice. It's good to finally say it, to get it out. But his utterly lost for words. His eyes are wide with shock and yet he's having a hard time holding back his incredulous laughter too. How the world turns, hey?

"Oh my God," Jocelyn says with a confused scoff of her own. "You mean... We both?"

"I had never before," Leonard promises with a quick shake of his head, "but I am..."

"Gay?" she supplies in a hushed voice, not ashamed, no, just _mindful_ of their surrounding. "Huh, who would have thought?"

"Why are you being so okay with this?"

"Why are you?" she counters.

That makes sense. They've both lived the last eight months tearing themselves apart thinking they were going to break their spouses heart when really their spouses were giving their heart to someone else.

"Do you love him?" they ask in unison.

Leonard has the good grace to blush and look away.

They both say "yes."

"Jim Kirk?" She frowns, recognising the name. "The Secretary of State's son, the ex-coke addict?"

"Not quite _ex_ , not since sometime today," Leonard admits. "We were meant to spend some time together this week, with me not working, but I needed to come up here with you. I think I might'a been a little curt with him on the phone. God, I'm such a jerk."

"Oh Leo," she sighs, "this is all my fault."

"Joce, don't be ridiculous. Sure we've both fucked up but this one, this one's all on me."

"I called Clay, told him I was going to tell you. He's coming up from Georgia, should be here tonight. Leave the car here and get on a plane back to DC. I can drive the car home in two weeks.”

"I don't want to leave you here." Leonard frowns. "You're my best friend, Joce."

"And you're mine, Leo. My lionhearted boy, right? Look, things are real messed up right now," she acknowledges. "But I'm safe here. So you need to go, okay? Go and be brave for Jim, come and visit me next week. Hopefully you won't have to bring Jim with you as an inpatient." She smiles ruefully. "It might just be a slip, Leo, if anyone can bring him back from it, it's you."

"You're not annoyed that I'm with another man?" he whispers.

"I just wish I'd have known you were gay in high school. I would have taken you shopping with me more often," she sniggers.

"Oh you're hilarious.”

"Go on, Leo," she insists. "Go save your man."

"Clay Treadway, huh?" he says, letting everything catch up to him.

"Fair’s fair, don't punch him or anything," she warns.

"He makes you happy?"

"I'm in love with him," she says with a nod. "It's been hard, with all this flaring up again," she gestures around the clinic, "but when I'm with him it's like none of that matters."

"If he doesn't treat you right, better'n I ever did—I swear to God I'll kill him. And I know how to make it hurt.”

"He's a really good man, like another I could name. You'd like him, Leo. You did in high school.”

"He was the quarterback," Leonard smirks, "of course I liked him."

Jocelyn's laugh makes him feel better than he has in days.

#

One line.

Two line.

Three line.

_More._

Jim buys a bottle of Johnnie Walker and heads back to his apartment. He's coasting on the last few dregs of coke still lingering in his system. He’d left the penthouse with the intention of actually going somewhere but it had only been four when he left and nowhere of any use to him was open. So he’d walked around the block a few times, thinking about what a fuck up he is and wondering where he could score.

He sets the bottle down on the counter and stares at it bitterly. When he looks back up, his entire family is standing in his kitchen. His mother, Sam, Aurelan. Even Christopher and Tiberius have made the journey.

Leonard is nowhere to be seen.

"Jim," Winona starts when he goes to unscrew the bottle cap.

But Tiberius interrupts her.

"What did I tell you, kid?"

"One line leads to many," Jim says gravely before he scoffs, pouring himself a drink and offering the bottle to Sam who shakes his head in disgust. "Gramps?"

"Sure, Jimmy," Tiberius nods. "If it'll make you feel less of a complete asshat, because drinking alone is no fun, right?"

Jim just sniffs irritably and sets the bottle and a glass down in front of his grandfather. He can pour for his damn self if he's gonna be like that.

"Don't do this, little brother," Sam pleads. "You're better than this."

"Six months sober, Jim," Aurelan reminds.

"Where's Peter Pan?" Jim asks, perking up slightly.

"He's with my mother.”

"He'll be a good kid." Jim is sure. "With you two at the helm."

"I know I haven't been the best," Winona says.

"Well no," Jim agrees, "but I wasn't talking about you. I was talking about my nephew."

The room falls silent. They all remember snappy, sarcastic Jim who's climbing the walls for his next fix; full to the brim with cutting remarks so subtle you wonder if you imagined them until you realise he's left you bleeding out on the floor.

"If no one's going to join me, feel free to exit the house in an orderly fashion," Jim instructs, directing them off with a wave of his hand.

"I'm not going anywhere," Sam says. "You can drink that bottle dry and snort every speck of blow you have in this place but I'm not leaving."

"Is this like the time you did Molly with me on my nineteenth birthday?" Jim wonders.

"I'm not doing coke with you, Jim.”

"That's a shame, I like you better when you’re high." Jim grins. "I like you better when _I'm_ high."

"Don't burn your bridges, kid," Tiberius warns.

"We can book you into a treatment centre, Jim. You'll be cleaned up again in no time," Christopher says.

"No thanks, _dad_."

"Jim, don't start," Winona urges.

Jim just smirks at her before shrugging and taking the first sip from his tumbler. He winces at the unfamiliar, almost forgotten, burning sensation.

"It bites, huh?" Jim puffs out an amused sound, gesturing the glass at Tiberius.

"Things that are bad for us always do, son," Christopher says, stepping in front of Tiberius and Winona and leaning against the counter. Christopher is an ex-marine, a Captain. He might be a pretty-suited politician now, but he's still as intimidating as hell when he wants to be. And Jim has always respected his godfather for that, for being able to will other men into obedience with just a look. A look that almost always works on him too. Almost.

Not when drugs are concerned.

"I'm sorry, Chris. I really am." he shrugs. "I screwed up. But I'm not ready to stop yet."

"You're hurting, Jim. Numbing that isn't gonna help."

"How—"

"I know you better than you think. You wrenched up that floorboard thinking a little powder would make the pain go away, but it hasn't. That's why you went for the bottle and not to one of your old dealer friends." Christopher shrugs. "That won't work either, though. You gotta face the heartbreak sooner or later."

"Have a shower, Jimmy," Tiberius says. "Then take yourself off to bed. We'll be here to talk it out again when you wake up."

"You don't have to babysit me." Jim frowns.

"We do," Christopher counters. "Until you're yourself again."

Jim doesn't know if he can ever be himself again.

He's not even sure if he knows who _himself_ is.

The guy's a stranger to Jim, anyway.

#

Sam makes up the bed and sets a glass of water on the bedside table. Christopher calls an old friend of his, Phil Boyce, to arrange some detox meetings just in case. Aurelan calls Gaila and explains the situation. Gaila offers to come over as soon as she's back and Aurelan thanks her for the offer, informing her Winona is out fetching some groceries when Gaila asks if it would be okay to talk to her.

"Tell her to buy him a new white t-shirt," Gaila instructs.

"What? Why?"

"Trust me, he'll get it. It'll make him feel better."

Aurelan texts the advice onto Winona and then goes about making a few rice, pasta, and noodle dishes for Jim to keep in his fridge. It doesn't take her long and she knows a home cooked meal is always something Jim's associated with tender affection and having someone care about you. Little things will go a long way, especially with Jim Kirk.

"He's been playing again," Tiberius says, resting his fingertips over the ivory piano keys.

"Maybe it reminded him too much of the past," Christopher says.

"Maybe he wasn't playing the right songs."

Aurelan looks at Tiberius carefully, watching the old man flick through the music book, wrinkled fingers carefully thumbing over each page, considering. When he finally makes a choice Aurelan smiles: _Fly Me To The Moon_.

"Jim's always liked Sinatra," Aurelan murmurs.

"Admired him as a man who could hold his drink," Tiberius corrects with a crooked, Kirkian smile.

The baby inside her kicks, almost in amused agreement with its great-grandfather. Aurelan sets her hand over her shifting abdomen, smiling. There's always a silver lining to every situation. She's a true believer of that.

#

It's quarter to twelve and only Sam and Tiberius are left in the house. They're waiting for Jim to wake up. Waiting to see what the damage is. Waiting to see whether the storm has brewed or has started subsiding.

A key turns in the front door and Sam assumes it's his mother, come back again out of worry even though Christopher is meant to have taken her home and told her to stay put.

Leonard walks into the house and Sam sees red.

And by red, he means _blood red_.

Blood red like the stuff pumping out of the split in Leonard's lip.

"Samuel," Tiberius chides gently, "punch the man quietly or you'll wake your brother."

"He's home?" Leonard asks, taking the split lip and the imminent bruising with more poise than Sam thought the doctor would have. His eyes dart towards the bedroom.

"Don't you dare," Sam warns.

Then Sam notices a 'World Duty Free' shopping bag in Leonard's hand.

"What's in the bag?" Sam asks.

"Well it isn't a bottle of vodka," Leonard grouches.

Sam snatches up the bag and pulls out a white t-shirt.

"We already got him one," Sam almost growls.

"I didn't know if you knew."

"Gaila told Rae," Sam admits. "Mom picked one up when she was out."

"Good," Leonard says. "I just—I had to make sure."

"You deserved that smack in the mouth," Sam huffs.

"Yeah," Leonard nods.

"But he fucking loves you, do you know that?" Sam demands.

"I do," Leonard breathes, "I love him too, I—I told my wife everything. I want to make a go of this, Sam. I'm not gonna run out on him again."

"Way to go, Sammy," Jim whispers for the doorway. "I'd have probably broken his nose."

"You always were a better fighter than me," Sam shrugs.

"It's all right, we have Aurelan to attest to the fact you're the better lover." Jim smirks.

"It's hardly even a contest," Sam teases.

"How's Jocelyn?" Jim asks, still looking at Sam, which makes Sam slightly uncomfortable. But he figures if Jim looks at Leonard right now his brother's body might just finally shatter into a million pieces. Irreparable.

"She's better. Not great, but better," Leonard says. "It's bulimia, that's what she's in for."

"I see," Jim says carefully, nodding.

"You told her and she's better?" Sam questions.

"Turns out it all kicked off again after she had a pregnancy scare five months back," Leonard begins. "She didn't know who the baby's Daddy was."

"She's been having an affair as well?" Jim grimaces. "That's convenient for you both."

"It means there doesn't have to be any broken hearts," Leonard counters. "It means I'm gonna have at least one person on my side when I come out to my parents."

"You were always going to have me on your side, Bones," Jim says, grit and iron in his voice, and Sam thinks he looks wounded.

"I know, but a supportive Jocelyn will really help my case," Leonard says plainly. The way he's staring at Jim makes Sam think he's looking for mercy or pity or some sort of understanding and compassion for his plight. Sam wants to sock him again. He wants to beat him until he's unrecognisable.

"I snorted nearly six grams of coke today, are we gonna talk about that?" Jim asks brutally, nose twitching subconsciously—or not, maybe it's for dramatic effect. Who could really tell with Jim? "It took me about five hours to get through it, then I wandered around the block high as a kite thinking about how soon I could do it all again. Honestly, I don't think I'm above shoving you aside and walking out if here and scoring all over again. I'm not. Actually, I'm fucking crawling the walls for it."

Sam looks away. He can't take the heat in Jim's eyes, even if it's directed at another man. Tiberius stands beside Jim and frowns.

"You wanna tell me what these white t-shirts mean?"

"It's a thing they suggest at AA, or that Gaila suggested anyway. Whenever she slips and ends up back at one of those orgy parties fucking people like it's what she needs to do to stay alive, she goes out and buys a new white t-shirt. It's meant to represent starting again, you know?" Jim explains.

"So start again, Jim," Leonard says, gently pulling the material from Sam's hand and offering it to Jim.

"I want it so bad, Bones," Jim whispers.

Sam wishes he knew whether Jim was talking about sobriety or cocaine.

He suspects the latter.

"I know," Leonard breathes, stepping forward to wrap his arms around Jim's shoulders.

When Jim's body begins to shake with silent, cathartic, sobs, Sam feels like he can finally breathe again.

Maybe Leonard's presence isn't such a bad thing after all.


	6. (Love)life

Jim wakes up when it's still dark. The clock on his bedside table reads 02:34, which means he's been asleep all of three hours. But he's already slept four hours today. He's had more than enough sleep. He'd be well-rested if the need to skin himself alive weren’t negating that feeling.

He's certainly awake, at least. And there's no hope of returning to slumber.

Leonard is in the bed beside him. This should be the first day of the rest of their lives. It should be a good day, a day of celebration.

Sweat makes the white t-shirt cling to him. It's sticky and uncomfortable.

Fuck he needs a drink. A line.

One line, two line... No, he won't. He _can't_.

They're all rooting for him. He has to try.

He presses himself back into Leonard's body. It yields to him, curling around him, hands and legs like clingy octopus limbs, sucking Jim backwards, closer. Jim tries to make his breathing match Leonard's. It gives him something else to focus on, a goal to work around.

In for two, out for two, in for two, out for two, in for-

He _can't_. He pushes himself out of the bed and heads for the shower. His body feels clammy and gross; it's begging him. Begging for what it needs. What he needs.

Blow. So much blow. It's all he wants. He wants to coat his body in white powder until he's completely numb.

He's so spaced he doesn't even hear Leonard enter the en-suite and step into the shower behind him.

"Jim you're still wearing your t-shirt," Leonard whispers, sleepy and adoring.

"I'm not ready to take it off yet," Jim admits, sounding, in contrast, like a frail child.

"Why don't we get in the bath instead, let me wash your hair," Leonard murmurs, pressing a soft kiss to the back of Jim's neck.

"I can wash my own hair," Jim insists, letting his head fall back against Leonard's shoulder.

"Hmm, but I'd like to do it," Leonard whispers. "I was so fucking scared, Jim."

"I wanted to hate you," Jim whispers. "For choosing her. But I just ended up hating myself for being so petty."

"I love you."

It's a declaration Jim can only return by nuzzling his face back against Leonard's throat. It's an awkward position but with Leonard's arms around him, their—mostly—naked bodies flush against each other, Jim doesn't care.

"Take me to bed, Bones," Jim gasps, feeling the light touch of Leonard's fingers trail over his hips, almost as warm as the water pelting his chest.

Leonard hums in agreement, pressing his face further into Jim's neck, sucking and licking and biting until Jim's knees are almost too weak to hold his body.

"Come on then, darlin'," he murmurs, leading Jim out of the shower by his sodden t-shirt.

They make it back onto the bed, still wet enough so that their skin slides against each other. Leonard heaves them upright so that Jim is perched over his lap, legs outstretched behind Leonard, knees slightly bent. Leonard holds most of Jim's weight off of him with two firm hands on his hips. They shift slightly, so Leonard can reach back for the bottle of lube on the bedside table. After a moment or two, with Jim’s impatience growing, Leonard's fingers seek out Jim's body with slick fingers.

The brush of his cock against Leonard's abdomen makes Jim shiver. He's so turned on and he doesn't even know how he got here. How he got from nervous, withdrawing wreck to a man in desperate need of an orgasm.

"Just do it," Jim hisses, "I'm prepped enough."

Leonard barely has a second finger inside Jim; it's not enough prep. Not really. But Jim doesn't care, he wants to feel Leonard come inside him and he wants it now.

"I'm not gonna hurt you," Leonard says gently.

"I wanna feel you," Jim rasps out, rocking his hips against Leonard's torso to just gain a touch more friction.

Leonard crooks a third finger inside him and Jim presses back onto them. Leonard's fingers are long and deft and they know exactly how to make Jim's body sing.

"Come on, Bones," Jim urges, trying to lift himself up without the leverage of his legs, clawing at Leonard's back until the man relents and guides Jim's hips down onto him. He's only slick with the barest amount of lube and a smug of precome. It's uncomfortable at first, but it's enough. It's perfect.

Because for the first time in four days Jim feels more than just the raw need to fill his system up with drugs. He feels Bones, and there's honestly nothing better.

#

It's 05:04 when Winona wakes up. She wanders around the silent house and only just manages to prevent herself from calling Jim to beg for him to come home. Home where she can look after him and he can get better.

It’s been just over a week since she sat up at two a.m. and decided she would become President. She knew it was going to be difficult on her boys, but she’d thought Jim was ready, she thought he’d be able to handle this.

Tiberius is sitting at the breakfast counter when she descends the stairs.

“You’re up early,” she says.

“Never slept,” Tiberius admits.

It makes her feel guilty for catching the few uneasy hours she did, but she knows that wasn’t his intention.

“What happened after we left? You didn’t get home until past midnight.”

“The boyfriend returned.” Tiberius shrugs. “Looks like they made up. Sammy punched the guy first, though.”

“Good boy,” Winona smiles. “So Leonard’s back?”

“He was very earnest,” Tiberius says softly. “He really loves that kid.”

“He’s got a funny way of showing it,” Winona mutters.

“The wife has bulimia,” Tiberius says. “That’s why she was in the hospital up in LA. He was trying to do right by her, Win. I don’t think he’s a bad man.”

“Poor thing,” Winona sighs. “I suppose he won’t be telling her about the affair now.”

“Turns out they were both playing away.”

“Well fuck,” Winona says, genuinely surprised.

“And the way I gathered it they’re still the best of friends.”

“And Jim?”

“He’s got a tough journey ahead of him.”

#

When she buzzes the intercom at half nine, Nyota is left waiting. It takes three more tries before an unfamiliar drawl, still thick with sleep, asks who it is. She explains herself and is permitted entrance. As she damn well should be.

She doesn’t expect the epitome of tall, dark, and handsome to open the door in sweatpants and an old t-shirt.

“I have a nine thirty interview with Jim,” she explains, eyeing the man. He has broad shoulders and huge hands and an angular jaw, but his eyes are soft, fond at the mention of Jim’s name.

 _So this is the love life_ , Nyota thinks with a smile.

She wonders if it’s still off limits.

“He’s, ah—he’s just getting ready. Finishing getting ready,” the man corrects, blushing. “Leonard McCoy,” he introduces, extending his arm. They shake hands and she offers him a coy smile.

“Jim’s partner?”

“Yeah, well I mean... His boyfriend, sort of. It’s complicated,” he shakes his head, an indicator that he’s probably said too much. “That much was obvious though, huh?”

“That you two are together or that it’s complicated?” she wonders. “I find that most things with Jim tend to be complicated, but yes, you have bed head so it was an easy conclusion to draw.”

“You’re the reporter.”

“Nyota Uhura,” she says with a nod.

“I’ll watch myself around you, I think.” He smiles.

“It’s usually best to,” she agrees, smiling back at Leonard. There’s warmth in her dark brown eyes. “Jim said you’re off the record, or well, anything about you. So I won’t quote you.”

“ _His boyfriend, sort of_. Doesn’t really make much of a case for us, does it?” Leonard chuckles.

“It’s complicated,” she parrots back with a smirk.

When Jim finally does make it out of the bedroom, he still won’t let Nyota have Leonard, or any scoop about their relationship. It’s not that Nyota minds, but as she watches them she takes in how established they look. It’s a good look for Jim. Better than his drugged-up Playboy look anyway.

He looks happy.

Tired, but happy.

She can’t ask about why he looks so exhausted though.

Not while Jim’s sex life is still off the table.

#

For the most part, the cafe is a relatively unknown gem, so it is fairly quiet even though it’s lunch time. Carol Marcus is waiting for a good friend of hers with a lemon muffin and a cappuccino. While she’s never been the biggest coffee fan, she already knows Nyota will order a macchiato and so Carol will need all the caffeine she can get in order to keep up with her.

“Carol,” Nyota greets with a smile. “How’re things? It’s been so long since we’ve done anything.”

“God, don’t I know. I’ve been running around after blueprints for military weapons all day; no one seems to have any clue what they’re doing in the White House since Winona Kirk resigned. I mean, I feel Daddy’s anger, I do. But the woman knew how to keep the cogs turning.” Carol sighs. It’s been a long day. “I’m supposed to be going to some art museum later. They’ve turned old-fashioned guns into sculptures; apparently it’s quite striking. I just feel dead on my feet.”

“Don’t we all?” Nyota nods. “I was up all last night writing up the bones of this new article, trying to find the right voice for it. Funnily enough, it’s a piece on Winona’s son, Jim.”

“Oh, wasn’t he in rehab recently?”

“Yeah, six months ago.”

“What angle did you decide on?”

“I don’t know, light and uplifting maybe? He’s really turned himself around. He’s got a new—oh, well I shouldn’t really say...” Nyota trails off, picking at her own pastry.

But Carol’s intrigued now. And it’s not fair for Nyota to play the client confidentiality card with her; they’ve been friends since they attended Colombia together.

“A new squeeze?” Carol guesses, figuring Nyota isn’t really breaching her code of practice if she isn’t doing the telling outright.

“Well it seems a bit more important than that. I think they’re quite serious.”

“Oh you met him, did you?”

“Hmm,” she nods.

“Anyone famous?”

“No one I knew. His name was Leonard McCoy. He’s not in the White House, I don’t think.” She shrugs.

“No. I haven’t heard of him anyway.” Carol shrugs. “What about that article on Barnett, did you read that?”

“Oh god yes; I’ve met Chekov once or twice before. He’s a brilliant writer...”

Their conversation continues to steer back and forth between work and play. But Carol’ll certainly be holding onto one titbit of information.

_Leonard McCoy._

#

The bottle of Johnnie Walker is still on the kitchen counter when Jim goes to investigate the possibility of a midnight snack. He and Leonard have been working up quite a sweat since Nyota left at twelve o’clock today. They’ve been reconnecting, and now Jim is famished.

And obviously still a recovering substance abuser.

_Whiskey burns so good._

A drop won’t hurt; it’s not like coke.

He makes a few sandwiches first, cutting them into triangles and stacking them prettily on the plate. Then he gets a glass and pours himself a little more than a single measure and knocks it back. The buzz is instantaneous. He looks around the kitchen to see if he’s been caught. He hasn’t.

He has another quick swig from the bottle.

He quickly washes out the cup, dries it and puts it back in the cabinet with its brothers. He should pour the rest of the bottle away.

He doesn’t.

He’s not keeping it for him, of course; there’s just no point wasting good whiskey.

He brushes his teeth before he collects the sandwiches to bring into Leonard. They kiss lazily for a while before the sandwiches get eaten, and again after they’re gone.

This is perfect, Jim thinks. It’s everything he’s ever wanted.

#

He doesn’t want to feel like he’s checking up on them, so Sam forgoes calling that first day. Jim will still be coming down from the day before, emotionally and physically, and he and Leonard need to take time to sort themselves out relationship-wise too. Besides, if Sam knows anything about his brother—and he knows a lot—Jim’s probably spending the day in bed doing anything but resting.

He’s had enough on his plate anyway. Aurelan had a scan today and he had to drive Peter over to Winona for the afternoon and then do a u-turn in the midday traffic to pick Aurelan’s mother up.

All in all everything is going well with the baby; Aurelan is the very picture of health, she’s radiant and enthusiastic. Sam doesn’t know if he’s ever seen her more ready for anything.

He’s probably the more anxious one; he was fine when they were having Peter, but he supposes everything with Jim has rattled his cage a bit.

If something were wrong, Leonard would call him. Sam has no doubt about that. Maybe he should have checked for himself, but he knows Jim wouldn’t have appreciated it.

“He’ll be fine,” Sam whispers to himself. Fine.

#

He’s pretty sure they’ve never had this much sex in such a short period of time. They’ve spent enough dirty weekends together that they’re accustomed to devoting all their energy to getting as much of each other as they can while they’re together, but it’s only been a little over twenty-four hours and Leonard’s pretty sure he’s come half as many times.

He needs coffee and he needs it now.

Even if it kind of kills him to leave the bed. To leave Jim sleeping alone at 06:49.

But they can’t stay in bed forever. They’ve had their recovery; now they need to face the world again.

Leonard wipes the sleep from his eyes and yawns, stepping into the kitchen he’s so familiar with from his first two months with Jim and opening and closing various cupboards to try and decide what he’ll be making for breakfast.

When he first spies the bottle he thinks nothing of it. Until he looks again.

It’s emptier than the last time he saw it.

For a millisecond his world closes in. It narrows and pushes at his shoulders, trying to compress him into nothingness. Or maybe into breaking. If Jim’s drinking again that only leads to drugs. There isn’t one without the other. And if Jim’s secretly drinking, then it’s not far-fetched to imagine what else he might secretly be consuming.

“Jim,” Leonard calls out into the hallway, letting the sound carry, listening to it reverberate around the oh so quiet apartment. Jim emerges from the bedroom completely naked and a little sleep rough; his hair is stuck up in every direction and he has the folds of the sheets imprinted into the side of his torso, curving up and over his ribs like snakes.

“Mmm, morning.” Jim smiles, leaning in to kiss Leonard’s cheek. Leonard smiles even though his heart is racing. He’s confronted Jim before, but that was months ago, when Jim was an actual drug addict and not one who had been through a recovery.

The dynamics are completely different.

“The bottle’s emptier than it was,” Leonard says gently, determined not to break eye contact.

Jim looks shocked and then scared and then he sighs.

“I tried to pour it away,” he whispers, “but I couldn’t.”

“Oh,” Leonard releases a relieved puff of breath. He pulls Jim into an embrace. “I thought... I’m sorry.”

“Hey, it’s okay,” Jim says into Leonard’s shoulder. “But you can trust me,” Jim murmurs, “you can.”

Leonard nods, holding onto Jim a little longer before letting him go.

“Shall I get rid of it?” Leonard asks. “Or are you ready now?”

“Let’s eat first,” Jim decides. “I’ll do it later.”


	7. The Woman Problem

Winona has a lot of important people she needs to contact today: people that’s she’s going to need to get to support her campaign, from press and media coverage, PR, and advertising to big companies from which she needs to garner funding. She’s also got another two or three statements she needs to put out and some other, smaller, errands to run.

But surely she can read the morning paper first.

Big mistake.

_Inside source confirms that Jim Kirk, cocaine addict and resident DC playboy of the gay club scene, has finally found himself a man. The man in question is none other than one Leonard McCoy. While the name will not be immediately familiar to most, Leonard McCoy is the son of small town doctor David McCoy, supporter of the Republican Party. Not only is there a political clash in paradise, there is also Leonard McCoy’s wife to consider. Jocelyn McCoy, currently unreachable, has been married to Jim’s new play toy for over ten years…_

Winona can’t bear to read anymore. Who the fuck leaked this story? The writer of the piece is unknown to her, some gossip rag writer called John Harrison. He’s quick and succinct and a fucking tornado ripping up the floorboards of her and Jim’s life in less than two hundred words. How he got such a trashy article published in such a high brow newspaper she’ll never know.

But she’ll be calling her lawyers.

And Sam.

And Jim.

She hopes to god he hasn’t seen the article yet.

Leonard will suffer too. He’ll suffer more than anyone. He’s just been outed as a homosexual cheating on his wife.

She needs to call Nyota.

If that little hussy was the spark that started this fire, Nyota Uhura can kiss goodbye to her career.

She calls Christopher first:

“Have you seen it?” she demands.

“I called Komack; he’s gonna start looking at suing for libel. I’ll get a statement written up and try and cover you from the political backlash. If you’re asked, you’re gonna have to say you didn’t know and you don’t support it, Win. We can’t lose the conservative voters,” Christopher sighs. “Call Sam and call Jim, I’ll email you later.”

So she calls Sam.

“I’ve read it, Aurelan’s calling her father who has a few insides at the paper. He’s going to see what this John Harrison dude is like and go about getting the article retracted with a full apology,” he explains. “I need to call Jim.”

“Let me do it first,” Winona says. “Oh wait, I’ve got another call coming.”

“I’ll talk to Jim, you take this call.”

Winona nods, even though her son can’t see her, and cuts that call to accept the other one.

“Winona Kirk,” she answers.

“Madame Secretary, I’m so sorry. I just read Harrison’s article about Jim and—“

“Firstly, I am no longer the Secretary of State and thus do not desire to be addressed as such. Secondly, if you had anything to do with that story, Ms. Uhura, I suggest you contact your lawyer,” Winona states, calm and collected but sharp too.

“I mentioned it in passing to a very close friend of mine; it’s only in hindsight that I realise who she is may have—“

“And who _is_ she?”

“Carol Marcus, Ms. Kirk.”

“Alexander’s daughter. Of course.”

“Harrison is in the President’s pocket, Ms. Kirk. He’ll write whatever he’s told to and he’ll make it juicy,” Nyota sighs. “I’m so sorry.”

“I want you to stay away from my son,” Winona says, “but first I want you to write a response. Spin this back in our favour.”

“Jim won’t talk about Leonard with me,” Nyota counters.

“You won’t be talking to Jim. I’ll meet you at the house at half three and I’ll give you your story.”

#

Jim pours two shots out of the bottle—taking a third swig for luck—before emptying it down the drain. Leonard is in the shower and it might be the only chance he gets to drink again for a while. He feels so tense in the seconds leading up to throwing back the first shot but then he does and it’s like liquid gold slipping down his throat and making him burn rich from the inside out. The second one is even better.

Now that’s it’s gone though, he can be good. He can get back on the wagon. Even if he doesn’t really want to. Even if his body still craves cocaine and booze and any other drug he could get his hands on.

Leonard’s phone rings and the display reads Eleanor. Why would his mother be calling? The McCoys aren’t like the Kirks; they’re not half as close. Not since Leonard left for college anyway.

Then Jim’s own cell starts beeping. It’s Sam.

“Hey,” Jim greets. “You checking up on me?”

“I take it you haven’t read the article. You’re way too chipper,” Sam says regretfully.

“What article?”

“An article outing you and Leonard as a couple.”

“But Nyota—“

“It wasn’t her. I don’t know how it got leaked yet. We’re still investigating.”

“Oh god,” Jim mutters, realisation dawning. “Bones’ mother just called. He’s in the shower. I’ll get him to call her back as soon as he's done, she's probably seen it.”

“What about you?”

“What about me? Everyone already knows I’m gay.”

“It’s a spiteful article, Jim. Don’t go looking for it,” Sam advises. “We’ll sort it out.”

“I am an adult, you know,” Jim huffs.

“You need to focus on recovery,” Sam counters. “I’ll call you again later when I know more.”

Jim scoffs.

 _Recovery_.

He’s so not ready for that right now.

#

When Leonard gets out of the shower he has fourteen missed calls and a missing boyfriend. His mother is responsible for the majority of the calls,  but Jocelyn has also left two and his friend and colleague Christine Chapel has left one. Leonard figures that whatever it is they’re calling about probably has something to do with why Jim isn’t in the apartment.

Leonard calls Jim first.

He hears the cell phone ringing in the kitchen.

Where there are two shot glasses on the counter. Still wet around the rim and smelling of good whiskey.

Leonard’s heart sinks.

Jim’s gone.

He texts Sam because he doesn’t know what else to do.

Jim’s cell rings again almost immediately and Leonard answers it.

“He left it here,” Leonard explains. Then they proceed to swap stories, everything they can think of that might be relevant.

Leonard heart drops for a second time when Sam informs him of the existence of the article.

“I need to make some calls,” Leonard says. “I’ll drive over to you as soon as I’m done.”

“What if Jim comes back?”

“I don’t know, Sam, but I can’t just sit here,” Leonard hisses. “Where would he go?”

“Are you saying you think he’s gone to score?”

“I’m saying he’s just drunk a double measure of Johnnie Walker. It’s a distinct possibility that he’s gone for coke, and not the Cola kind.”

“Make your calls. I’ll contact Christopher.”

Leonard starts with Christine. He texts her instead of calling; he doesn’t know if his voice could hold out.

_I take it you read the article? I’m sorry I never told you. Joce knows everything though. I’m up shit-street right now, so I’ll call you later._

He contemplates texting Jocelyn too, but he was married to the woman for ten years. He knows that kind of behaviour won’t fly with her.

“Jocelyn,” he starts.

“Your mother called, said something about a newspaper article about you being gay... I didn’t think you were coming out yet,” she interrupts, sounding surprised and a little bit annoyed.

“It was leaked. we had nothing to do with it. I haven’t even had a chance to read it, just piecing together what everyone else has been saying. Fucking hell, Joce. I don’t know what to do. And now Jim’s gone missing.”

“Oh Leo,” she sighs.

“How’re you getting on?” he asks out of politeness and a need for distraction. And because she’s his friend and he needs her to be okay.

“Better, now that everything’s out in the open I just—I don’t feel so guilty or ashamed. Clay’s been great,” she adds.

“Good,” he lets out a relieved breath.

“I have to call Ma. I’ll talk to you later, Joce.”

“Okay, Leo. Good luck.”

He’s damn well gonna need it.

#

Looking at herself in the mirror and seeing how gorgeous she looks in this new Prada number sometimes makes Janice think she could probably go a few days without coke if she had to. Prada dresses last longer than cocaine and people actually comment on how good they make her look. Coke makes her skin dry and she really _is_ starting to worry about having to save up for a nose job.

She really likes her nose.

“You look good, Duchess.” Jim’s voice catches her off guard; she hasn’t seen him in six months and she doesn’t expect him to feel so good when he saddles up beside her on the bar stool and pulls her to him for a quick embrace.

“Jimmy?” She turns to him, kissing his cheek and leaving a faint Mac-pink smudge. “It’s been forever.”

“Far too long. How’ve you been? How’s the bar? How’s that girl you were dating, the striking eyes and the white pixie cut?”

“Jodie? She’s great. Everything’s great. We’ve all missed you, though. I guess you needed some time out. It’s great that you got clean,” she says, trying to hold in her own sense of disappointment and loss. She and Jim have been best friends since they were in middle school. They were like two peas in a pod. Inseparable.

If they were both straight, they might have been married by now. Janice is so glad they’re not, though. Jim would be _such_ a high maintenance husband.

“Jim!” Hikaru—Janice’s bartender but also a loyal friend of theirs—appears, ready for work, and right on time.

“Long time no see,” Jim grins. “What’s your latest mix?”

“You’re drinking?” Janice asks, confused. Sure, The Fleet _used_ to be their stomping ground. Janice bought it with her mother’s inheritance money and turned it into her veritable pleasure palace. It’s only a small intimate bar, but it’s always earned her a good income. It’s not that she doesn’t want Jim to stay and have a few drinks with her, it’s that she thought he was flying sober.

“As of yesterday, yeah.” Jim nods.

“Oh, Jimmy,” she sighs. “I don’t wanna drag you down.”

“You’ve only ever been an upper, Jan. I promise.”

#

_I want nothing more to do with you._

Leonard is breathless. And he’s not sure it’s something he’s going to recover from.

His mother has made her position quite clear: he cannot be her son and be Jim’s partner.

She wasn’t impressed when he told her his choice.

But the anger he initially felt has given way to the deepest desire to grieve. To mourn the loss of a woman he thought he would always have. Mothers are meant to love unconditionally. Looks like Eleanora didn’t get _that_ memo. He should have known she wouldn’t be merciful, even when he’d told her the entire story, even about Joce and Clay.

His mother had called her a whore “as well”. So he’d put down the phone.

He almost wishes there was something wrong with Clay, something that he could play on to appeal himself back to his mother’s graces. Something that would make Jim less alien in comparison. But nothing must be worse to an old-fashioned, Baptist mother than a homosexual son.

Plus, Clay is practically perfect in every way. He still looks like a quarterback even though he’s the CEO of some global trade company. Which, of course, means he’s more than financially set. He’s real striking too. He’s got dark brown eyes and dark hair and dark brown skin, which automatically translates into tall, dark and handsome. He can speak French fluently because his mother and father lived there for a few years when he was a child and he was always smart in high school.

 _And_ he’s straight as an arrow.

Fucking asshole.

Leonard scoffs at himself and shakes his head.

 _Priorities_ , Leo.

Like the fact that he needs to find Jim, not wallow about how he’s not as straight as Clay Treadway and therefore his mother’s never going to love him.

#

Jim hasn’t been this high in a long time. Even after the killer amount of coke he got through the other day, he didn’t get here, to this place of fluidity and freedom.

Janice’s laughter is like a kaleidoscope of colours; he’s missed her so much.

They’re in her sitting room above the bar. Janice is threading her fingers through his hair, wearing just a thin-strapped vest and some fleece pyjama bottoms. Jim shucked off his jeans a few hours ago and is just sitting with his head pillowed in her lap. She smells of vodka and orange blossoms.

“He’s good to you, though?”

“The best,” Jim murmurs with a nod.

Bones is like luxurious chocolate. Smooth and melting and oh so tempting. A comfort no matter when you have it. Something you’re always in the mood for.

“We should double date,” she suggests, giggling.

“I’ll drink to that.”

#

Tiberius hasn’t been this worried in a long time. No one knows where Jim is, and they can’t call him. Jim hasn’t contacted Gaila and the list of AA relapse haunts she gives them proves useless. Leonard and Sam started off the afternoon arguing but have, quite surprisingly, put their heads together to try and smooth over everything with the article and subtly call around to see if anyone’s had word from Jim.

They can’t start making too much of a scene otherwise alarm bells will start ringing, and no doubt there will be more nasty write-ups to follow.

Tiberius can only imagine the headlines.

Winona is trying to function like a woman who may, one day soon, run the entire country. She looks composed and ready to face the worst or the best or anything in between.

But Tiberius doesn’t buy it.

Inside he knows she’s crumbling, just like she did the moment George’s body buckled from the force of a bullet to the centre of his chest and he fell to his knees.

Jim has lived most of his adult life on his knees, scrambling around on the floor trying to find the path back to clarity and righteousness. It looks like he’s drawn himself back into the thicket of the forest, unable to see the wood from the trees, unable to see anything but the darkness that encloses him.

Sometimes a little bit of darkness can keep a person sane; it lets them sleep. But for Jim—well, he’s an addict. He takes his darkness in waves, and soon he’ll forget the sunlight.

“The Fleet,” Sam says. “Has anyone called Janice Rand?”

“I’ll do it,” Winona says, exhaling.

It’s their last bet, Tiberius knows. Then they’ll have to consider filing a missing person’s report and having the information leaked to the press.

“Janice Rand?” Leonard asks, turning to face Tiberius.

“Best friend he ever had, that girl,” Tiberius acknowledges, “but they’re both as bad as each other when it comes to the fun stuff.”

Actually, that’s a lie.

Jim has always been far worse.

#

“ _Winny_!” Janice screams upon answering the phone which immediately grabs Jim’s attention. He snaps his head up to look at her, frantically shaking it.

“Jim?” she questions, and she must see the horror on his face. “No, I haven’t heard from him. Oh, oh okay. Alright. Yes, of course.”

Jim exhales. He’s safe for a little longer.

“I’ll go home soon,” he promises Janice, who gives him a worried look. “But I’m gonna need enough coke to get me through the week.”

“Are you gonna try and go covert?” she asks, sitting forward and setting her cheek on his t-shirted chest.

“I am.” Jim nods.

“Won’t that be a little difficult when you have someone in the house with you?”

“He’s back to work on Monday. He’s a doctor so his shifts are crazy,” Jim explains. “And their ward has been getting a makeover this week, so they’ll be doubly busy. I’ll set myself into a routine. He won’t suspect a thing.”

“And you promise you’ll come and see me more,” she pleads.

“Come around for dinner tomorrow, I want Bones to meet you. Bring Jodie,” he adds, grinning.

“And pretend to be sober together?” She grins. “We’ll never get away with it.”

“Jodie knows you dabble,” Jim counters and Janice makes a sound of agreement.

“But our definitions of dabble are a bit different, so keep it all hush hush, Jimmy.”

“I swear,” he says solemnly, holding his hand over his heart.

Janice makes it quite clear she thinks he needs to go home and put his family out of their misery. She lets him shower first to get the smell of her and the rest of the day off of his skin. When he gets redressed she’s back in another designer dress. This one is a jade-ish colour, and it makes her skin look golden.

Janice always looks so beautiful. Sometimes it makes him melancholy to think she’s just as rotten and fucked up on the inside as he is.

“Ready for the night, duchess?”

“Most definitely,” she nods, pressing her cheek to his. “Now get home to your dear Prince Charming.”

First, he stops off to buy some groceries to give himself time to rehearse his story.

Claustrophobia, fear, Johnnie Walker, all swirling around his head—he’d run. But he’s fine now. He’s much better, in fact. _Yes_ , he thinks. That’s what he’ll tell them.


	8. An Amendment

“You’re a shitty liar, Jimmy,” Tiberius scoffs.

“You’re still high right now!” Christopher calls across the room, indignantly. He probably feels as offended as Leonard does right now that Jim expects them to buy that story.

“No I’m not.”

“No,” Sam agrees, which completely confuses Leonard but what does he know? He’s only the boyfriend, after all. “You’re just starting to come down, huh? What did you do? Have a cold shower before you left wherever you were?”

“Fuck, Sammy, I didn’t know I was that predictable,” Jim scoffs.

“You make me fucking sick,” Sam grits out. “I can’t believe you’d be so damn selfish.”

“I learnt from the best,” Jim whispers, gaze slowly traveling from Sam to Winona and back again.

“Don’t do that,” Christopher snaps. “It’s not your mother’s fault you can’t keep yourself clean. You were always trouble Jim, ever since you hit middle school. Acting out, truancy, drink and drugs. Fucking juvie list as long as my arm that you only managed to get wiped because of your _mother’s_ determination.”

“Yeah, and the money lining her pockets,” Jim mutters.

“It meant you never went without!” Christopher roars, stepping so close to Jim that Leonard can’t physically stay sitting next to Tiberius in the sofa any longer. He surges forward, standing between the two men.

“Calm down,” Leonard warns, eyeing Christopher carefully.

“My knight in shining armour,” Jim whispers, setting his hand on Leonard’s shoulder. But the doctor flinches away, because he can’t right now. He can’t do this. He can’t pretend not to be livid at Jim. He just doesn’t want Christopher to put him in hospital.

“Don’t, Jim,” Leonard warns. “I’m not protectin’ you. I just—“ He turns away from Christopher to look at Jim. “I was fucking _terrified_ , Jim. You just took off. You talk about your Mama being selfish? Well maybe that _is_ where you learned it from. I’m fucking _angry_ , Jim. Fucking furious.”

“Don’t think I’ve ever heard you curse so much,” Jim counters, swallowing.

“I love you, you complete fucking asshole. My life fell apart this morning and I had to hear about it from your brother. We’re mean t‘be there for each other, Jim. We’re meant to be each other’s first line of defence. This morning my mother told me to _choose_ : you or them. You or my damn _blood_. I chose you, even though you were too busy snorting cocaine god only knows where to notice,” Leonard rasps, voice trembling with rage and sorrow and so much fucking _relief_ that Jim’s here, in front of him, not lost in the gutter somewhere.

The penthouse is quiet in that moment. It feels like it could just be them.

Leonard hears Christopher step back and he hears Winona make a surprised sound.

Jim looks devastated.

“I’m not worth that choice, Bones.”

“You are to me,” Leonard urges. “You don’t get a fucking say.”

“Stop _swearing_ at me,” Jim implores, following it up with a weak laugh. His eyes are wet, though, and Leonard just wants to hold him.

“I love you,” Leonard whispers, exhaling a rough breath. “I don’t want you to do this to yourself again, Jim.”

“I couldn’t help it.” Jim voice is barely more than a husk of sound, he’s ashamed. “I didn’t want to help it.”

“Why?” Leonard asks, scrunching his eyebrows together. “I just don’t get it. You were doing so well.”

“It doesn’t go away,” Jim states hopelessly, his voice mouse-quiet.

Leonard doesn’t know what to say; he has no platitudes, no lies that can console Jim with, he doesn’t have any way to liberate Jim from his addiction; he doesn’t know how to make Jim think differently, or how to make this all go away. He can’t protect Jim, and that hurts more than Leonard can bear.

Leonard accepts that this isn’t going to go away, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to let Jim fall back on drugs. He can’t.

He loves Jim, and even if it’s for selfish reasons, Leonard couldn’t stand to lose him.

“We need a chance to talk,” Leonard says gently, surprising himself. He turns to Christopher and then to Sam. “We’ll call you later.”

“I’m not going anywhere.” Sam sneers.

“No.” Winona sighs. “Leonard’s right. Nothing will come of us all standing around, gawking at each other. You make sure you call me when you’re settled,” she adds, looking at Jim like he’s a wild animal, something feral that might not understand her words.

And maybe she’s right. Maybe that’s how he needs to be treated: carefully, and with the understanding that he can be dangerous.

#

Jim realizes he’s spent a lot of time in bed recently, and maybe that’s the problem. He needs something to keep himself busy. He needs goals and hobbies and other things that motivate the daily lives of the majority of the population; you know, like a job. When he cracks an eye open he sees that the glowing red, digital numbers read 10:28.

Leonard is already up, no doubt. The other side of the bed is empty, anyhow. Leonard’s never tended to be an early riser if he doesn’t have to be, but all this with Jim has probably made his mind and body do somersaults. Jim wouldn’t blame the man if he couldn’t sleep; he wouldn’t even blame him if he didn’t want to. Sleeping in the penthouse requires that Leonard get into bed with Jim, and Jim could see how that might not be hugely appealing right now.

Jim might feel guilty if he wasn’t too concerned with the symptoms of withdrawal that are pricking at his skin: the sweats; the shakes.

A headache that resembles being hit by a freight train.

“Here’s some water,” Leonard whispers, suddenly crouched down at the side of Jim’s bed as if by magic. “Winona said not to give you pain meds while you’re coming down from all this, but I—“ he stops himself and Jim finally cracks open the second eye. Jim blinks away the glossy, unfocused sheen blurring his vision, rubbing over his cheek with the back of his hand and pushing his hair back and away from his damp forehead.

“You’re making me go cold turkey,” Jim rasps.

“You haven’t even been back on it for a week,” Leonard whispers. “It’ll be easier. We just need to get over this crash. I’ll be right here.”

“Until you have to go back to work in two days,” Jim grits out. He can’t keep down the snappishness that is gradually growing. Eating him up from the inside out. He’s hit with a following wave of anxiety at the thought of being left alone. He wants Bones here, with him. He just—he wants cocaine too and he knows that will prove problematic because Leonard has a no-drugs policy.

“No, no. I called the hospital; I’m taking another week off. Geoffrey’s going to cover my shift; I haven’t taken leave since I moved up here. They’re giving me compassionate leave,” Leonard explains.

“No one’s dead,” Jim scoffs.

“And they’re not going to be,” Leonard counters sternly. “You’re going to beat this.”

“That sounds like an order.”

“It is.”

#

Leonard putters around the house for most of the day, checking in on Jim periodically. For the most part his lover just lolls under the cover of their duvet, contorting himself into a variety of positions that Leonard is certain aren’t one bit comfortable. But maybe it eases the fidgetiness, maybe it’s the only way he can try and counteract the restlessness.

When Jim finally pads out of the bedroom it’s half past six in the evening. Leonard has made dinner, he’s cleaned the house, he’s scheduled a quick coffee date with Christine tomorrow—she’ll be coming over to the house, of course—and he’s been sent a copy of Nyota Uhura’s response article, which, if Leonard and Jim are both happy with, will be published in tomorrow’s paper.

Jim looks like death warmed up, and then left outside in a tornado to cool down again. His skin is pasty but his cheeks are blotched a livid looking crimson. He looks exhausted and his movements are laboured, as if he’s walking in water.  

“Can we go to Taco Bell?” Jim asks, scrubbing a hand through his hair.

“What?”

“’m starving.”

“I made dinner,” Leonard snorts. “It’s still in the oven.”

“What’d you make?”

“Lasagna.”

“You’re a god, you know that right?” Jim hums, throwing himself down on the couch beside Leonard and curling into him. Leonard threads their fingers together and scoffs.

“You’re delusional _and_ clammy,” he mutters. “Just my luck.”

“You love me even when I’m clammy,” Jim counters, pushing his face against Leonard’s abdomen.

“I love you always, Jim.”

“I love you too,” Jim whispers. “I’m sorry.”

Leonard just nods, even though Jim’s not really looking at him. He wonders what Jim’s thinking. Sure, Leonard’s just hear the promise of love out of Jim’s mouth, but he can’t shake the sour feeling of doubt in his stomach. How can Jim _not_ resent him right now? Leonard is the obstacle that stands in the way of him getting high as a kite and flying off to that perfect Technicolor place somewhere faraway and exotic. Jim once explained it to Leonard as unadulterated _pleasure_. Not happiness necessarily; no, more like a bodily sort of euphoria. Like the peak just before an orgasm, the hitch of bliss just before you tumble over the edge; but this is stretched out, prolonged. This is gratification in waves that sparks like a firecracker inside your veins over and over again.

And Leonard is keeping that from Jim. Leonard is hiding him away in the monotone dullness of sobriety. Leonard has closed the curtains around Jim and blocked the sun from his golden hair.

Jim’s blue eyes look so worn, staring up at the ceiling and contemplating God knows what.

 _Cocaine_ , Leonard sighs; Jim’ll no doubt be contemplating cocaine.

#

_In response to a recent article, although to call it such affords it merit it failed to earn, it was clear to me that the truth needed to be written about James Kirk and his supposed affair with a married man, Leonard McCoy. Having met with Mr. Kirk for several interviews before this irresponsible piece of journalism was printed, it is clear that the man holds his love life, or his “romance,” as he phrased it to me, in high regards. I will be the first one to step forward and say that over the past few years, Jim Kirk has been nothing but a nuisance in the political and social sphere. Not only did his drug addiction deter public favor from his mother, but it has also impeded his own potential to be the elegant, intelligent young man I have met with of late._

_He is dating Leonard McCoy, twenty-nine-year-old neurological surgeon, who is still currently married to wife Jocelyn McCoy. However, something that failed to come to light in Harrison’s article is that neither Leonard nor Jocelyn are currently taking much effort to cultivate their marriage. Both are in the process of an amiable divorce and are seeing other people. This omission from Harrison’s article appears nothing more than a vindictive ploy to cast Jim, Leonard, and the Kirk family in a negative light now that Winona Kirk has announced her intentions to run for Presidency..._

Nyota has heard back from Winona and Leonard, who said that everyone who has seen the copy of her article is happy to let it run. Leonard even made reference to the fact that his soon-to-be ex-wife was impressed by it, even if she’d rather keep her contact with the Kirk political campaign to a minimum.

Spock said it was “graceful while maintaining her air of command;” Nyota thinks he might have been quicker just to say _sassy_. Not that Spock would ever be so base as to use such a colloquialism. She smiles at that. Maybe she has been able to dig herself out of the hole that Carol Marcus, unintentionally or not, put her into. Carol’s never been a clumsy woman, though, and when she told her father what Nyota had said she must have known the implications it would have, the subsequent ramifications of her father having that sort of information on the son of a political opponent.

She certainly won’t be in a hurry to be so forthcoming with Carol again, especially not where it concerns her work. She contemplates emailing Carol and asking her what the hell happened, but she can understand where Carol is coming from. Alexander Marcus is still her father, after all, and, even if Carol doesn’t view him with the rose-tinted glasses she used to, she still affords him her loyalty.

Carol’s only human, as is Nyota. They’ve both made mistakes.

 _Live and learn, Nyota_ , she reminds herself.

At least she can make some slight amends, even if it means losing her big spring article.

#

Jim thinks he could probably sneak out of the bed without being noticed if he put his mind to it. The bag of coke Janice gave him is in the bottom drawer of the end table in the hall. He stashed it when he first got back to the house last night. He could get to it. It wouldn’t make enough noise to wake Leonard. He _wants_ it, he knows that much. He wants to run through the house in nothing but the soft cotton pyjamas that stick to his thighs. He wants to kneel on the floor beside the end table and he wants to rub blow onto his gums until he gets the buzz back.

He feels agitated; like a deep malaise he just can’t shake. He’s pretty sure the only cure is to claw his way out of his skin. But he can’t do that to Leonard. He can’t destroy himself. Jim has no idea why, but it’s quite clear Leonard loves him. He’s still here after all. Breathing evenly in the bed beside him. Sleeping soundly.

Unlike Jim.

He’s utterly exhausted but couldn’t find sleep again if he sold his soul for it. He sits up and blinks through the darkness; he’s hungry again. But he has to watch that; binging to compensate the withdrawal pangs is only going to make him chubby. Jim gains weight like nobody’s business. That’s why he tries his best to run as much as he can—and he’s not been doing much of that lately either—he always retained a few extra pounds as a kid and if he’s not careful he’ll end up back there.

But, _ugh_ , he’s so hungry.

Cocaine helps him not be hungry; cocaine helps him not be a lot of things, like bored, on edge and _sober_.

Right now? He really doesn’t want to be sober.

Jim wonders what Leonard would be like high on coke. Probably gooey and saccharine. Like a chocolate truffle than has had its hard shell bitten off and swallowed and is just oozing out all over Jim’s fingers.

That sounds so good.

The chocolate sounds good too.

He lies back down and tries to stop his shoulders from tensing. He doesn’t want to risk waking Leonard; the doctor doesn’t need another reason to worry over Jim. Besides, Jim doesn’t want to incite anymore fuss. They just need to get through the night. There is no alcohol left in the house and the drugs are certainly off limits. Aren’t they? If Jim just makes it until morning without bolting then maybe he can crawl back to recovery. He turns his face so his cheek rests atop the fluffy duck-feather pillow, just watching Leonard sleep. He looks calm, almost serene. Jim snakes his hand over Leonard’s bare torso, letting his fingers raise goose-bumps on Leonard’s skin as he goes. Then he cocks his head against Leonard’s shoulder, pressing his forehead to the warm skin, and internally pleads for the comfort of sleep.  

But he doesn’t get it.

Instead, he has to suffer through the incessant tick of the clock which he can hear coming from the hall. Second by second. Minute by minute. Tick-tock, tick-tock.

He watches the sun as it rises just after five am and he waits in anticipation as Leonard starts to stir. Jim can’t take this boredom anymore. It’s like a constant itch that he cannot sooth. At least once Leonard is awake Jim will have some sort of entertainment.

Some sort of _distraction_.

Jim shifts away from Leonard to wring his hands and crack his knuckles, followed by each notch of each finger. The sound is soothing somehow; it gives Jim something to which he can tether himself. It’s something concrete that holds his attention. _Crack. Crack. Crack._ It’s steady and rhythmic, and it reminds Jim how reassuring he’s always found the habit, even though his mother has always chided him for it.

He’s not going to be able to settle again, though. The bed is suddenly too small and Leonard’s body is all too hot against his. But leaving the bed could be risky. What if he gets up but never stops walking? What if he walks through the bedroom door, the hallway door and then the front door and then keeps on going until he can find another door to walk through to find his next fix?

The possibility is there.

Jim is supposed to be stronger than this. He’s supposed to be ignoring, _rejecting_ , the very thought of a ‘next fix’. But it’s always there. Lingering.

“If you don’t stop fidgetin’, I’m going to smother you,” Leonard mutters, lifting his head off the pillow to look at Jim.

“I need to expel some energy or something. I’m going crazy.”

And then Jim is hit with a _terrific_ idea.

The fire must be clear in his eyes because Leonard gets this tentative look on his face, which is still half cast in shadow with the angle of the dull morning light. But Jim doesn’t let that deter him, he shifts his thigh over one of Leonard’s legs and edges closer, drawing the bridge of his nose over Leonard’s jaw.

“Come on, Bones,” he whispers. “Let’s have some fun.”

“Jim, are you sure about this? You’re fragile right now an’ I don’t wanna—”

“I just—I need this, Bones. I need to feel something other than this crippling _want_. It makes me sick that I can’t stop thinking about it, that I can’t just shut my brain up. I need—”

“Okay, Jim,” Leonard whispers, setting his broad hand over Jim’s sternum. “Okay, darlin’.”

They lie facing each other for a few short seconds. To Jim, the time seems elastic. It seems to stretch out before him with no end point in sight. Is Leonard going to refuse anyway? Or is he going to do this for Jim, even though he’s clearly not a hundred percent Jim can take this right now? What is Leonard even afraid Jim can’t handle? It’s just sex. It’s just something they’ve done a hundred times over by now.

Jim just needs to have this want, a want that verges on gross and corrupting, met. And Leonard is a safer addiction to indulge in than cocaine. Leonard won’t hurt him.

When lips press against Jim’s, it’s like time snaps back into place, speeding up like somebody has hit the fast-forward button. Jim scrambles for purchase at Leonard’s shoulders, gasping as Leonard rolls on top of him, pinning Jim to the mattress with his greater weight.

Jim tries to remember every sensation he can: from the roughness of Leonard’s stubble as he presses kisses to Jim’s collarbone to the soft but firm pressure of Leonard’s fingertips into Jim’s hips, leaving invisible traces of fingerprints that Jim wishes he could shine a blacklight on to see. His pale body is like a page under Leonard’s hands, scribbled all over in invisible ink. Signed and sealed in a way not even Jim is able to see. He can smell the artificial lemongrass soap powder on their bedsheets and Leonard’s citrus-scented shampoo. He can taste the staleness of Leonard’s lips and see the sleepiness that keeps the doctor’s eyes looking slightly bleary.

He can hear their mingled breathing fill the room as they move against each other, their bodies catching on the fabric of what little clothes they’ve worn to bed and making their erections known.

Leonard has pushed Jim’s t-shirt up so that his torso is exposed, material bunched under his armpits. It would probably be easier to take it off but it doesn’t look like the removal of clothes is all that important to Leonard yet. Instead, Leonard travels down Jim’s body, stopping to duck his head to the side and nip at Jim’s ribs, licking a trail down to his navel and sucking a love bite into the skin above his hip bone before pulling at the waistband of Jim’s boxers.

“Up,” Leonard encourages, tapping Jim’s flank lightly. Jim complies readily, lifting his hips and excitedly watching as Leonard wastes no time flicking his tongue over Jim’s cock, curling it around the head before sliding his lips down the length as far as he can manage. Jim’s breath hitches. It’s like he’s falling. Down, down, down, but he knows he’s going to be caught. He’s falling out the window of a very tall tower but Leonard is there waiting at the bottom. To fall like this is freeing, beautiful. For the first time in days Jim feels like he has fresh air in his lungs.

Another bolt of pleasure races up his spine and he gasps, fingers tugging at Leonard’s thick, dark hair. Jim was locked in the tower but now he’s running for the forest.

And he’s so _close_.

Leonard pulls his mouth off of Jim and smiles, pressing his cheek against the inside of Jim’s thigh.

“Don’t fucking tease,” Jim murmurs, breathless.

“You look good like this,” Leonard whispers, “hard and desperate.”

“Bones, I need to co—”

“Lift your legs,” Leonard interrupts, cupping Jim’s skinny thighs in his hands and guiding them up towards his chest. Jim takes hold of them just as Leonard’s hands slip away. Jim watches as the doctor slips two thick fingers past his own lips, cheeks hollowing out as he sucks and licks his own digits.

Jim swallows, and begs every conceivable deity for mercy.

But Leonard takes his time, his movements languid and teasing. Jim wants to scream; he thinks he finally understands the emotion of sexual frustration. He wants to beg and bargain and barter. He wants to _demand_ Leonard fuck him right now because if he doesn’t come soon he’s going to burst.

The first finger is like a absolution, the second is his reckoning, and when Leonard edges his tongue in alongside them Jim comes all over his stomach. Leonard isn’t finished though, and, drawing his fingers out so he can press in deeper with his tongue, curving and licking against the tight ring of muscle, Jim thinks his brain might be catching up with his body.

Jim physically can’t come again so soon; of course he can’t. Leonard’s a doctor: he knows that fact better than anyone. But while Leonard’s tongue is flicking over Jim’s hole, Jim is also physically incapable of having any awareness that he’s currently meant to be suffering under the weight of drug withdrawal. All he can think about is how _good_ he feels.

He’s spent, sure, and he’s almost painfully sensitive, but his cock is regaining interest and Leonard’s hands are keeping his cheeks spread and Jim feels like he’s getting some sort of reward.

Maybe it’s positive reinforcement.

He fucking _loves_ positive reinforcement.

He makes a pathetic noise and feels, just as much as hears, Leonard's answering chuckle.

“Don’t laugh,” Jim pants. “It’s not fair.”

But Leonard is so busy diverting all of his attention to going down on Jim that the younger man’s chiding and the strangled mewls bubbling up from his throat must not even register. Keening and whimpering isn’t Jim’s usual sex setting; his default is harsh breathing and guttural moans. Delicate noises just aren’t either of theirs thing, especially not in the bedroom. But Jim can’t help himself. He’s _just_ come and Leonard is driving him immediately off a cliff all over again.

Toes curling, Jim wonders how many more times Leonard is going to bring him to orgasm before they leave the bed. Jim wonders if he’s going to get a chance to return the favour.

For now, though, Leonard has moved away from Jim’s oversensitive rim and is placating himself with sucking sloppy love bites into the crook of his knee, kissing down his calf before he slips out of bed to get a wash cloth.

Jim slumps back into the pillows. He didn’t even realise he’d been leaning up on his elbows, arching his back as his body trembled. He can relax into the afterglow now, with Leonard rubbing soothing circles over his stomach with a cool flannel.

After a while Leonard whispers _turn over_. Jim makes a weak noise but begins to obey. Leonard stops him halfway to kiss his cheek and murmur _you’re beautiful_. Jim’s not quite convinced this is all really happening, that Leonard is going to actually fuck him after fingering and rimming him through two orgasms. The sensation is like floating on water: there is an ebb and tide to everything, the thrum of his heartbeat, and Leonard’s—which he can now feel against his back. He’s being carried along and he has no control: a literal incarnation of ‘going with the flow’.

And then Leonard has three lubed fingers inside him and a firework goes off somewhere low in his groin. Hyper-awareness floods through him until he’s rocking his hips frantically, engulfing Leonard’s fingers with wanton moans and getting answering groans of appreciation and encouragement.

Jim doesn’t come a third time, even once Leonard has sunk his cock inside him and fucked Jim for all either of them are worth. He just doesn’t have anything left—although it’s a _very_ near thing.

“Try and get some sleep now,” Leonard whispers. “You have to at least let me _think_ I’ve managed to wear you out. It’s just good manners.”

Jim huffs out a small laugh before pulling Leonard to him, rolling over so that he’s now on his back, head lain out on Leonard’s chest.

“God forbid anyone say Winona didn’t raise a well-mannered kid,” Jim scoffs, rubbing his cheek against the soft hair of Leonard’s chest.

“Sleep, Jim.”

And he does.


	9. Dog Days

Leonard rouses for the second time that morning at half past eleven. He feels like a complete slob until he sees Jim sleeping soundly beside him, and then he knows the few lazy days ahead of him are going to be entirely worth it. He wants to see Jim regain some semblance of self, to claw back to his life before this slip.

Christine is scheduled to arrive in about an hour, so Leonard needs to shower and get himself looking presentable. He contemplates waking Jim and dragging him into the shower as well, but now that Jim is getting some sleep, Leonard feels like it’d be wrong to wake him. Even if worry prickles at the perimeters of his consciousness. Jim could be gone by the time he gets out of the shower. It’s already happened once before.

So Leonard leaves the bathroom door open; he washes himself without fuss or preamble, towelling his hair to half-dryness before stepping back into the bedroom and smiling at the sight of a still-sleeping Jim.

Christine’s seen Leonard look worse, and thus he has no qualms slipping into a dark green t-shirt and marl grey sweatpants and heading down the hall and into the kitchen. Developing a routine is important, Leonard thinks. It means this is for keeps, that he intends to still be here in five or ten years’ time doing much the same: making coffee, checking his pager and his cell. He sends Jocelyn a quick text to check everything is going well and responds to a few emails he’s received.

He slots two slices of bread into the toaster and goes about finding peanut butter or whatever other too-sweet spread Jim no doubt has in his cupboards. They’re running low on a lot of the basics. Ideally, they should head out for groceries today, but just the thought of it sets Leonard into a bit of a panic. He sighs, pours out his own coffee, snags an apple and a bottle of water from the fridge for Jim, and heads back towards the bedroom.

Confronted with the sight of Jim sitting on the edge of the bed with his head in his hands, Leonard feels monumentally awful that he’d even entertained the thought of letting Jim wake up to an otherwise empty room.

“I’m being ridiculous,” Jim whispers.

“It’s the paranoia. That’s to be expected.”

“I thought you’d left. It made sense.”

“That wouldn’t make any sense,” Leonard counters. “I love you.”

“I know.” Jim sighs, finally looking up at Leonard, eyes bloodshot and slightly puffy. “I love you too.”

“Try and eat some breakfast,” Leonard urges, setting the plate and bottle down on the bedside table, rearranging his own cup so it no longer rests against his skin. It was starting to scald. “Maybe we could go out for groceries later, if you want?”

“If I’m ready, you mean,” Jim corrects.

“Yeah, I do.”

“Do you think I’m ready?”

“Why don’t you eat first, and then see how you feel?” Leonard suggests. “A colleague of mine, Christine, I invited her round for coffee today. Is that alright?”

Jim looks up at him, confused. “Of course it is,” he nods. “Why wou— _oh_. I don’t mind people being around, Bones. It’s not like no one’s seen me like this before. I used to be all over the rag mags.”

“I just didn’t know if you’d be up for company.” Leonard smiles. “I’m glad you’ll get to meet her though, she’s really somethin’.”

“I need to call Janice,” Jim remembers. “I told her she could come up for dinner yesterday. I’ve probably got fifty million missed calls. Where did Chris put my phone?”

“It’s in one of the kitchen drawers. Shall I get it?”

“No, I’ll go. Let’s eat in the sitting room anyway. I feel scummy, being in bed so long.” Jim makes a displeased face before grabbing his plate and following Leonard back out of the bedroom.

#

Honestly, she has no idea what to expect. For the past four years that Christine’s known Leonard, from their first meeting when he transferred up from Emory, Georgia after finishing his residency, to watching him glide through a fellowship and his specialist training with ease to become a proficient—dare she say _talented_ —neurosurgeon before his thirtieth birthday, she’d never have even suspected he was gay. Not that Christine expects to be able to pick up on people’s sexuality. She really doesn’t. She knows it isn’t a one size fits all kind of gig, and she wouldn’t expect to necessarily see an incarnation of the media-style stereotypes in her mundane world.

But, well… Leonard and she are good friends; _surely_ she should have had some inkling?

To be fair, she’d thought it was a lie when she’d read the article. That’s why she’d called him. But then he’d confirmed everything, and Jocelyn had _known_? It makes no sense to her, so she’s glad she’ll get a chance to see it for herself.

Leonard explained to her yesterday that Jim has had a slight drug wobble; he’d actually used the term _relapse_ , but she knows his tendency towards extreme bouts of apocalyptic thought and so she’s choosing to wait and see with her own eyes how far Jim Kirk has fallen.

“It’s good to see you, Christine,” Leonard greets, ushering her into the apartment and offering coffee or some of the sweet tea he’s just finished making.

“Only you would make iced tea in March.” Christine grins.

“Hey, it’s sweet tea all year round back home.”

“But you’re not in Georgia now, Leo.”

“No,” Leonard says gently, ruefully. “No, I’m not.”

“Oh Leo, I’m sorry,” Christine sighs. “Have you spoken to your mother since we last spoke? Have you spoken to your father at _all_ yet?”

“No.” Leonard shakes his head. “She wants nothing more to do with me and I doubt he’ll be any different.”

“But you don’t know until you ask,” Christine reminds. “You’re his _son_ , Leo. He loves you.”

“And so did my Mama until all this,” Leonard counters. “I’m not even sure Mama would have been able to overlook any infidelity, you know? I mean, I made those vows in the eyes of God and it doesn’t matter if Joce an’ I are okay with the fact that our marriage has run its course because when you get married you do it for the long haul. You make a decision and you stick with it and you certainly don’t go off and fuck other men.”

“Men?” Another voice questions, and then Jim Kirk comes into view, standing at the other end of the hallway looking like some kind of Calvin Klein model. He’s got this amused glint in his eyes and Christine is helplessly enamoured by him. “As in plural? Bones, you’re such a dog.”

“Shut up, you infant,” Leonard shoots back, leading Christine down the hallway and into the living area.

The first thing that strikes Christine is how they move together; it’s easy and fluid. There is a subtlety between them, like they’re tethered together with an invisible cord and they only ever seek to move in response to each other. It’s an intense sort of dynamism that she doesn’t think she’s witnessed from many couples. It makes her feel as if she is intruding. Jim sits with his knees turned to Leonard, who has his hand settled palm-up on Jim’s leg. It’s not intimate, or sexual; it’s tender. It’s pure fondness, plain and simple, and Christine dares anyone to tell her that this is wrong.

“Jim, Christine. Christine, Jim,” Leonard introduces belatedly.

“Thanks for coming over,” Jim says with a boyish smile. “I think Bones might have gone out of his head if he’d have had to stay in here with just me for company any longer.”

“You’re an idiot,” Leonard scoffs.

“Bones?” Christine wonders. It’s not a very affectionate pet-name; in fact, it’s downright morbid.

“Well, we met at a function,” Jim explains with a little smirk.

“Don’t _even_ ,” Leonard warns.

“It’s because he’s a doctor.” Jim shrugs, but it’s unconvincing. Christine knows that’s just a story, maybe one of many, that Jim gives to cover up whatever the real reason behind the name is—the reason Leonard clearly doesn’t want to become public knowledge.

“No it’s not,” Christine refutes playfully. She tries not to smirk but there is mischief in Jim’s eyes that encourages the delicate twist of her plump pink lips.

“No, it’s not,” Jim agrees. “It’s because I blew him behind a peach tree and the boxer-bri—”

“ _Jim_ ,” Leonard hisses.

“There were little dog bones all over them, he was wearing a _Dolce & Gabbana suit_ and then there were just these little white bones all over his—”

“James!”

Jim shuts his mouth with a theatrical snap and tries not to laugh.

“Peach tree, huh?” Christine smirk. “Typical.”

“It was—”

“I didn’t even know you owned a D&G suit,” she continues, “I’m impressed, Leo.”

“Joce bought it,” he grumbles. “An’ we were only supposed to be there for a weekend so I just packed whatever underwear was closest. It wasn’t like anyone was gonna see it.”

“Bones,” she scoffs. “I can’t believe you let him call you that.”

“I couldn’t get him to stop!”

“You love it, really,” Jim says, grinning.

Leonard just glares.

#

Jim decides he needs Leonard there when he finally returns Janice’s eight missed calls. So they wait for Christine to leave, they go grocery shopping to give Jim a little boost and something to psych himself up with, and _then_ Jim feels a little more ready. The kitchen is a relatively innocuous space now that there’s no drink or drugs left in it, but Jim still eyes the empty wine rack with trepidation. He almost cracked altogether when he had to walk past the end table by the front door earlier. Jim wonders if Leonard noticed he was staring at it, or if his anxiety showed.

It’s not like he’s going to ask Janice to bring round a bag of coke with her. Like, he’s tempted, sure. But he won’t. Leonard is standing in the doorway anyway, pretending to look at something in another room.

“Janice?” he asks when she picks up.

“Hey, Jimmy! You didn’t get back to me about dinner, is everything okay? I called but nobody answered. I was gonna call Winny but—”

“I’m fine, Jan. I uh, I’m try’na go straight again. But I miss you, you know? I was wondering if maybe you and Jodie could come around tonight? Bones is cooking. He’s a really good cook,” Jim adds, trying to entice her.

“Oh,” Janice pauses and Jim looks at Leonard with an almost constipated look. “That’s good, Jimmy. Really good. Yeah, sure. We’ll come ‘round. When do you want us?”

Jim can hear the hesitance in Janice’s voice and a pang of guilt hits him low in the gut.

“Uh, let’s say around seven? Bring a bottle of something, yeah?” he says so that she doesn’t have to ask.

“Oh no, Jim. It’s fine. If you’re not drinking... Jodie and I can manage.”

“Please,” Jim insists softly. “It’ll make Bones less awkward about drinking. You’d be doing me a favour.”

He sees Leonard frown at him—verging on indignant—so Jim bats his hand and mouths _I know, I know._  

“All right then, Jimmy. I’ll see you at seven. Tell your man I’m bringing a Rosé so he better coordinate the menu accordingly,” she giggles.

“Will do, Duchess. See you later.”

Jim cuts the call and exhales, leaning against the kitchen counter. Bracing himself.  Leonard steps up behind him and sets his hand on Jim’s hips, pressing his forehead to Jim’s nape. “It’s gonna be okay, darlin’,” Bones murmurs. “It’s only two o’clock, why don’t we waste some time before I have to start prepping.”

“Is it weird that you in dinner-party mode kind of turns me on?”

“No.” Leonard smirks, and Jim can feel it as Leonard starts kissing his neck. “ _Everything_ kinda turns you on.”

“That is true.” Jim nods, turning in Leonards’ arms before he slides his hands over Leonard’s chest. “And how exactly do you propose we waste time, Mr. McCoy?”

“Well,” Leonard starts, slipping his hands under Jim’s ass to lift him up by the thighs and place him on the kitchen worktop. Jim’s fingers tighten in Leonard’s t-shirt and he makes a surprised noise. He hates it when Leonard does that, well not really. But it’s the principle. Jim isn’t a _ragdoll_. “How’s about me fuckin’ you on the counter?”

“You must be really horny if you’re gonna fuck me in the kitchen,” Jim chuckles, pulling Leonard in for a heated kiss. He’s not going to let this opportunity pass him by, no matter how much he wants to tease Leonard about being an insane clean-freak.

“Hmm,” Leonard moans in agreement, tugging Jim’s lower lip between his teeth to bite and suck. “You smell good,” he murmurs, pulling at Jim’s t-shirt.

“Jesus, Bones,” Jim gasps. He doesn’t know what’s gotten into Leonard today but the man’s got this insatiable fire alight in his belly. His movements are passionate; he surges into everything. Full steam ahead. Once Jim’s t-shirt is discarded it doesn’t take long for Leonard to tug off his jeans and get a hand around Jim’s cock.

“You’re beautiful,” Leonard whispers, flicking his tongue out over Jim’s jaw and sucking a hickie into the soft skin below his ear. “Damn stunning, you know that?”

“ _Bones_ ,” Jim breathes, bucking his hips into Leonard’s hand.

He doesn’t feel beautiful, not usually anyway. But it’s different when Leonard has him like this, with adoration filling his voice and eyes. Jim feels like he could fly.  

And then Leonard is pulling down the zipper of his pants and shoving them down his thighs. “Fuck,” he mutters, before looking back up at Jim. “Have we got lube in here?”

“Uh huh,” Jim says proudly, grinning. “It’s in the drawer where all the spare medicine stuff is.”

“Because sex is your cure?” Leonard snorts, yanking his trousers back up to he can crouch by the drawer, rooting around it until he finds what he’s looking for. He uncaps the bottle and groans as he rubs a wet hand over himself.  

But suddenly Leonard stops, stock still, as if something unpleasant has just occurred to him.

“They ain’t been using condoms,” Leonard realises. “She thought she was pregnant.”

“What?” Jim asks, confused. He doesn't even know who Leonard is talking about. Pregnant? He remembers Jocelyn had a scare and she wasn’t sure—

Oh. _Oh._

Jim and Leonard have been going without condoms for about five months now. Jim knew he was clean because he’d requested to be tested when he was in rehab and, well, they’d both just _assumed_ Leonard was clean because up until that point he’d only ever slept with Jocelyn. Who was _supposed_ to only ever have slept with him. But she’s been sleeping with Clay. Clay, ex-quarterback and current CEO, who, by the sounds of it, could really have his pick of sexual partners.

“Call her,” Jim suggests.

“I can’t just _call her_.”

“Uh, yeah you can.”

“Jim, I have my fucking cock out I’m not gonna call my ex-wife and ask her if she’s got something,” Leonard hisses.

“I don’t know whether this is funny or decidedly not,” Jim admits. “It’ll be awkward if I laugh, won’t it?”

“If you laugh, I’ll strangle you.”

“This turned unsexy real fast, Bones,” Jim scoffs. “Can I get off the counter now?”

“No,” Leonard huffs. “Stay there.”

Leonard doesn’t give Jim much choice with his body is still in between Jim’s outspread thighs, unmoving. Leonard reaches for his phone and sighs. “Worst comes to the worst, there has to be some condoms in this house?”

“Won’t it be a little late for that anyway? Like, if we’ve all got something then we’ve all got something?”

“We won’t.” Leonard attempts to sound certain. “Clay’s a smart guy, right?”

“You’re a doctor, Bones. _You’re_ supposed to be a smart guy.”

“Just don’t move,” Leonard instructs, reaching for his cell phone. Jim watches him dial Jocelyn’s number and wait. The seconds before she picks up seem to pass painfully slow, but eventually Jim can hear her quiet voice on the other end of the line.

“Leo?”

“Uh, hi Joce. I ah, I was wondering—” he pauses to throw Jim a look that says he wishes his internal organs would fail. “Has Clay... got anything?”

“Anything like what?”

“Come on, Joce,” Leonard says awkwardly. “Anything. _Something._ You know, like syphilis?”

Of all the sexual transmitted infections in all the world, Leonard had to choose _syphilis_? Jim finds it really hard not to burst into laughter at that point, but he doesn’t. Instead, he strains his ears to hear Jocelyn’s response.

“Are you asking me if I’m _clean_ , Leonard McCoy?”

“It’s a valid question.”

“Are _you?_ ”

“I don’t _know_ now,” Leonard whines. “Hence the phone call.”

“ _Oh my word_. Are you in the middle of something, Leonard?”

“Don’t call me Leonard; you only call me Leonard when you’re mad. Don’t be mad,” Leonard begs pitifully.

“You’re a little hussy, Leo. How dare you call me during sex!”

“My dick is still woefully untouched, Joce—”

“And my ass is getting kinda cold,” Jim yells.

“This conversation is getting weird, Leo. I feel like I’m meant to say _hi Jim_ or something equally chirpy. I know we’re having an amicable divorce, but this is ridiculous.” Jim can hear Jocelyn chuckle. “But yeah, Clay’s clean. I’m clean. So you’re clean. And I imagine Jim already is otherwise you wouldn’t be asking me in the first place. Or at least he fucking better be because if you’ve—”

“You’re clean, Joce,” he reassures her. “So, uh, I’m gonna go. I’ll call you later.”

“Have fun.”

And they do—after a few moments to shake off the strangeness of the entire phone call, regain their composure, and get back into the groove.

They have _a lot_ of fun.


	10. A Junkie Walks Into a Dinner Party…

While Leonard would have preferred to fry some chicken and some okra, get some grits onto a plate and make biscuits—and he has a feeling Jim would appreciate homey sentiment—he had a feeling it wouldn’t really go down too well at a dinner party. God only knows what Janice will eat, let alone her girlfriend. So Leonard sticks with the classics. He goes with a Waldorf salad to start and pan-fried salmon for main—although he gets worried about whether or not the girls will eat fish and rushes to put together a chicken and pumpkin pie just in case—with Duchess potatoes.

“Jim, d’you mind if I run down to the store? I’m not gonna have enough time to make a dessert and we didn’t really factor that into our grocery shoppin’. I mean, we could go together but I know you’re gonna start wantin’ to get ready soon an’ I—”

“I’ll be fine, Bones. If I get…  _ wobbly _ , I’ll call you.”

“Whatcha want me to get?”

“Get fudge cake or something. I’m fucking starving.”

“You’re an animal,” Leonard says with a smirk, leaning forward to capture Jim’s lips with his own. “Call me if you feel…”

“Iffy?”

“Iffy,” Leonard agrees with a nod.

It takes Leonard all of fifteen minutes to leave the apartment, jog to the store, locate fudge cake and ready-made panna cotta because he’s not sure if he’ll want a heavy cakey dessert—besides, Jim’s always liked vanilla panna cotta so it’ll certainly get eaten sooner or later—and get home. Jim’s towelling his hair dry and staring into his wardrobe.

“Shall I put on a shirt?” Jim asks, pulling his shoulders back and elongating his neck with a haughty smile.

“Well, while I wouldn’t complain to you staying naked…” Leonard smirks, barely restraining himself from padding over to jim and wrapping the man up in his arms. “It’s probably more polite if you don’t.”

“The blue one?”

“The dark blue? Yeah. That one’s nice,” Leonard agrees. “Throw me out the grey shirt will you? They’ll be here soon.”

#

Janice feels like a naughty little schoolgirl. She hasn’t had  _ that  _ much coke, just enough to tide her over. Jodie hasn’t said anything, so it can’t be very obvious. Not that Jodie tends to scold her for her  _ casual  _ drug use. And it is casual. In a daily sort of way.

They arrive five minutes early and it’s Jim who opens the door.

“Hey Jimmy.” Janice beams. “I know you met Jodie before but it was only once or twice, wasn’t it? So Jodie, Jim. Jim, Jodie,” she introduces.

“It’s good to see you again,” Jim says with a gentle smile. “Come in. Bones has made way too much food and he’s not quite dressed yet.”

“Got a bit distracted, did he?” Janice smirks.

Jim eyes her for a moment with pursed lips. Janice feels under scrutiny, and it’s horrible because if Jim looks for drug use he’ll see it. Then she’ll be busted and she’ll feel guilty which is a horrible way to ride out her high. Jim sighs and looks away.

That’s it then. She’s been caught already.

“I’ll take the Rosé,” Jim says, extending his hand to Jodie who offers the bottle to him with ease. “You’re in post-production, if I remember right?”

“An editor, yeah.” Jodie nods. “Independents mostly, although I’m hoping to work with a big name come summer.”

“But it’s all hush hush until then, I guess?”

“Well, Hollywood usually is.” She nods. Janice looks between Jim and Jodie and marvels at how naturally they have managed to fall into conversation. Janice feels awkward around new people, like her body can never quite mesh with theirs. Like they speak different dialects.

They all head into the dining room where they sit around the table until Leo emerges with glasses, looking more than ready and poised for the evening.

Leonard McCoy isn’t what Janice was expecting. If she’s honest, he looks the wrong side of thirty, but then, doctors always tend to look a bit worn around the edges—apart from the cute ones on TV, of course—and he looks stern. Like her high school principal was. Until he looks at Jim and he smiles; then his features take on something boyish and light. He’s quite striking. Crazy-coloured eyes and pink, bottom-heavy lips.

“You must be Janice.” And  _ oh that accent _ . “And Jodie.” He smiles at each of them in turn and takes the bottle from Jim. “Do you want a glass?” he asks Jim first, hesitantly. Janice isn’t sure if Leonard is being polite or if perhaps Jim isn’t giving up the drink. Maybe it’s a test? She looks at Jim, waiting for his answer.

“No.” Jim says, chewing at his top lip. “I’m alright for the moment. I’ll get water for the table.”

“And bring in those squarish plate-bowl things.”

“You’re so established,” Jodie says with an amused smile. “I just, I didn’t—” she shakes her head. “I didn’t know what I was expecting. The last time I saw Jim—”

“He was fucked off his face and flirting with anything with a dick?” Jim supplies, walking back in from the kitchen and setting the bottle down on the table. He’s grinning crookedly and so Janice assumes Leonard is aware Jim wasn’t always a good boy. Monogamy suits him, though. “I hate to be clichéd, but Bones is worth more than all the other dicks.”

“Be still my beating heart,” Leonard mutters.

“Let’s get some food on the table, hey?” Jim suggests.

“Only small portions for me,” Janice says. “I’m not too hungry.”

“Jan, you haven’t eaten  _ all day _ ,” Jodie chides. “You’ll fade away to nothing.”

“Coke doesn’t leave you with much of an appetite,” Jim mutters. He looks angry and Janice isn’t sure why.

“Are you being snarky, Jimmy?”

“I don’t know, Jan. Am I?”

“What’s wrong?” Janice huffs.

“You knew you were coming to a  _ dinner _ party. You couldn't have left a little room for the  _ food _ , maybe?”

“Are you being high and mighty because you’re sober or because you’re jealous, Jim?” Janice snaps.

This isn’t on. He doesn’t get to show her up like this and he doesn’t get to pretend like he’s the angel when three days ago he was sitting in her flat snorting blow alongside her. It’s not fair. He’s  _ supposed  _ to be on her side. They’re best friends.

“I’m not being high and mighty. I was always a polite junkie.”

Janice scoffs. “Yeah, if polite means deviant where you come from.”

Jodie shifts awkwardly in the seat beside her and Leonard takes a step closer to Jim. Janice watches the man stretch his long fingers towards Jim’s elbow but he refrains from touching. This was meant to be a fun evening. It wasn’t meant to be like this.

Janice could really do with a drink right now.

“Why don’t you open the bottle and come sit down,” she suggests.

“Am I killing your buzz, Jan?”

“Yeah, as it happens, you are,” she snaps.

“You don’t have to stay.” She can see the regret hit his blue eyes immediately but it’s already too late. She’s already mortified and pissed off and she just wants to get out of this hellhole apartment. It’s stifling.

“Then I’ll go.”

“Janice,” Jim pleads, stepping forward. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. You’re high and I’m not and you’re right. I envy you right now and I’m being an asshole.”

“Fuck you, Jim,” Janice huffs, looking up at the ceiling to stop the tears that threaten to spill.

“Duchess, don’t cry.”

“‘m not.”

“You need to excuse yourself?” Jim whispers, stepping closer to her and tucking a blonde strand back behind her ear. It’s been left out of her up-do on purpose, but Jim’s never been good at the girly stuff. She knows what he’s asking, the subtle code he’s using, and she feels dirty that she even contemplates doing blow in his home.

“No, Jimmy,” she says, shaking her head. “I’m fine.”

“I’ll start to serve,” Leonard says slowly, gesturing back to the kitchen.

“I’ll give you a hand,” Jodie says, stepping up to follow him.

“Have you, ah—have you got any on you?” Jim asks. He already knows the answer, and he must know she knows he knows. Is he asking for some? Can she tell him no?

They’re best friends.

“Yeah,” she whispers. “But you can’t ask me for it, Jim. Please. Look how good you have it here.  Leonard’s beautiful, you know?”

“Yeah, I know,” Jim nods. “But I do want some.”

“No, Jim.”

“You’re right, I’m sorry.”

“It’s gonna be hard for us now, isn’t it. You sober, me not?”

“I don’t know.” Jim shrugs. “I love you, Janice.”

“I love you too, Jimmy,” she promises. “I just don’t wanna drag you down.”

“You could go straight too, you know.”

“Hey!” Janice tries to smirk. “You said you’d always support my bisexuality, even when I stole your boyfriend in the twelfth grade.”

“I let you have him.” Jim pouts.

“Sure you did, Jimmy.”

“I mean it though, about getting clean.”

“You’re not exactly in a position to be talking, Jim,” Janice sighs. “I mean, you can’t have gotten through all that coke. Did you flush it?”

Jim looks away and Janice has her answer.

“Exactly. So you’re not being very conscientious about getting clean.”

“It’s just a safety net,” Jim hisses. “Just—”

“Just in case.” Janice nods. “That’s how you relapse, Jim.”

“Are  _ you _ lecturing  _ me _ ?” Jim snaps back, incredulous, screwing up his face.

“Lecturing you about what?” Jodie asks, stepping back into the dining room with the serving bowl full of Waldorf salad.

“Uh…”

Jim’s eyes are begging her not to say anything.

“Jim?” Leonard prompts, frowning.

“It’s nothing,” Jim says.

Janice doesn’t know why she does it. Maybe it’s because she really does love Jim. A deep love, which might be tainted by their addiction but is genuine and significant nonetheless.

“Jim has coke in the house,” she whispers before she turns to look at Jim. “I’m sorry.”

Jim just huffs out a breath and runs his fingers through his hair. Janice can see that he wants to hate her. But she has a feeling that one day he’ll thank her. One day when they all get their happy ending.

“It’s in the bottom draw of the end table in the hall. I haven’t touched it, I swear.” Jim’s voice is hollow-sounding, until he gets to  _ I swear _ , then his voice—his  _ eyes _ —seem to plead for Leonard’s trust. Janice bites her lip before she licks along it.

“Were you gonna tell me?” Leonard asks. “Or were you gonna wait for me to find it? Were you just keeping it in reserve? I don’t get you, Jim. You can get clean. You have every resource around you to get clean. Everyone’s trying to help, but you just throw it back in our faces. I don’t understand.”

“I asked Janice to give it to me because I had no intention of getting clean. I was off my face, Bones. I wasn’t thinking clearly.” Jim turns to face Leonard, his back to the two women. He steps closer, fingers reaching out to touch Leonard’s waist. “I would have told you. I just wasn’t ready for it not to be in the house yet. Please don’t be mad.”

In that moment, Janice thinks Jim looks like he did back in middle school: innocent and eager to please. He hated getting told off by his teachers, always looks for affirmation of his skill and potential. Janice imagines that Leonard gives Jim the love and affection that he’s never had in his life. Not to say that Jim wasn’t loved, that’s not fair at all; it’s just that Winona’s was always a mature, steady love—without bursts of pride and big shows of tenderness—and Sam was always a companion, but he’s so protective of Jim that they’ve never really been equals in anything. Jim’s idolisation of Sam makes things unbalanced. Even she and Jim share a bond with a completely different dynamic.

Leonard’s love is unfaltering. A fool could see that. Jim doesn’t, though, because he doesn’t know how to look for it. Jim still believes Leonard’s love is something mutable, something he could lose if he doesn’t play his cards right. He’s worse than a fool.

“Look,” Jodie says gently. “Maybe we should go? We can reschedule for another night.”

“No.” Jim turns his head to shake it at her, giving her a confused smile, as if asking  _ why would you want to do that?  _ “It’s fine. Bones and I can sort this out later.”

“Can we?”

“What does that mean?” Jim snaps his head back around to look at Leonard.

“I want it out of the house now,” Leonard says. “You can serve the salad, before it starts to get warm and disgustin’. I’ll get rid of it.”

“ _ Bones _ ,” Jim pleads, making a strangled sound.

Janice is pretty sure it’s time for them to go now, but Jim would never have it. He’s got the instinct to play host in his blood. An instinct to lead and arrange and organise, and even if he lacks the ability to cook he could never allow Leonard’s efforts go to waste.

“Serve the salad,” Leonard instructs, giving Jim a heated look before heading back out into the hallway.

Janice knows how torn Jim is between running after Leonard and sitting down at the dinner table. He looks like a man whose world is beginning to crumble.

“You were never gonna snort it anyway,” Janice reminds him, trying to keep her voice firm and reassuring. “Because you’re clean, Jim. Or you’re getting there. You don’t even want the coke. You don’t need to test yourself by keeping it here and you don’t need the temptation.”

Jim just nods.

#

Jodie’s never seen anything like this. She’s seen some of the people Janice hangs around with bouncing off the walls and generally capturing the essence of the Mad Hatter or March Hare. But she’s never seen this. She’s never known anybody  _ broken _ by drugs. She seen it on-screen, maybe, in Hollywood blockbusters and the artsy indie films her colleagues have produced. But this is too raw, too authentic. It makes her upset and uneasy.

But Janice needs to remain here, and Jodie gets that. Janice has never had a friend like Jim. They’ve been each other’s everything since Jodie has known Janice. Until Jim left, of course. They’ve obviously learnt to let others into their lives. But Jodie doesn’t think she’ll ever be what Jim is to Janice.

There is nothing ‘ _ just _ friends’ about what Jim and Janice have. It would never become romantic—Jim’s gay and Janice doesn’t do blue eyes; she thinks they compete with her own, although nothing could—but what the two of them have is something that should never be qualified as  _ just  _ anything.

Janice needs to be here for Jim, even if Jodie can see that she’s is starting to feel uncomfortable as well.

So they all sit down at the table, Jim serves, Leonard rejoins them, and they eat in rounds of awkward silence and stilted conversation.

At least the food is good.

#

Nyota finally gets a reply to the email she sent to Carol. Mostly it’s apologetic. She has seen Harrison’s article and now Nyota’s response to it. She hopes she’s didn’t get Nyota in too much trouble.  _ It was just an offhand remark I made to my father. About how having Jim at his best might give Winona a boost and that he should watch out for that _ . _ He’s my father. I was just trying to help him.  _ Carol isn’t usually thoughtless, but perhaps Nyota underestimated how savvy Carol is when it comes to Alexander Marcus. Maybe he does still blindside her.  _ I’ve talked to him, though. I’ve told him how angry I am. It was something I told him in confidence. It should never have gone as far as the media. _

“At least you now have your apology,” Spock says, taking her hand in his and twining their fingers on top of the bedsheet.

“I wish I wasn’t best friends with the President’s daughter,” Nyota huffs, plugging her Blackberry into charge and turning off her bedside lamp. She keeps their hands laced but turns into lie against the length of Spock’s body. He’s always so warm and it makes sleeping easier. Especially after the week she’s had.

She feels him kiss the crown of her head and shuffle as he closes the book and nestles closer to her.

“Good night,” he whispers.

Maybe things aren’t so bad after all.


	11. Lost Boys

All Jim can think about is how there is no longer any cocaine in the house.  _ Gone. _ Just like that. And now Janice and Jodie have left and it’s just him and Leonard clearing away the plates and the cutlery, neither one of them emotionally ready to start conversing with the other just yet.

Jim absently wonders if there’s a trace of powder left in the sink. Probably not. Leonard is thorough; he would have washed the steel basin until it was gleaming. Completely clean, just as Jim should aim to be.

“I’m sorry,” Jim whispers.

“What for?” Leonard isn’t asking because he thinks there’s nothing to be sorry for, Jim realises. He’s asking which part of this clusterfuck of an evening Jim is actually sorry about.

“About lying to you. About keeping drugs in our home. That’s what I’m sorry for.”

“ _Our_ home,” Leonard repeats with a soft smile.

“ _ Home is wherever you are _ ; you said that to me, right? No take backs.” Jim attempts a smirk but he still feels dejected. Wretched. He has no idea how he can make a place home for a man like Leonard, who is wholesome and and warm—like a hearth. Jim is nothing more than ash, nothing more than the cinders blown out of the fireplace by cold winds, dirtying the ground.

“Home is us, together,” Leonard agrees. “Healthy and happy, though. Body, mind, and soul. That shit isn’t happiness, Jim. It’s like—I don’t know. It’s like suckin’ up death into your veins. It will dry you up and leave you rotten. But you’re so good, darlin’. So beautiful. Don’t do that to yourself, huh?”

“It’s hard,” Jim whispers. “I don’t feel beautiful.”

“Give it time.” Leonard smiles. “Maybe one day you’ll see what I see.”

#

“Don’t just head over there, Sam. Give him a call first,” Aurelan scolds. “They might be busy.”

“I’m worried, Rae,” Sam huffs, his brows knitting together.

“You’re going to get frown lines,” she sing-songs before handing Sam his cell phone. “Call him first.”

“ _ Fine _ ,” Sam concedes, sounding annoyed. He raises his hands as if in surrender and Aurelan scoffs. Peter’s starting to show the same stubbornness that every Kirk seems to exhibit on a daily basis. How people who live their daily lives in the White House can detest being told what to do so much, she has no idea. Hopefully Peter will become an artist or something. Working freelance in Milan. God forbid he become a politician. She doesn’t think her heart could take it.

She sets her hand on her stomach and wonders about her future child; about who they might be and what they might do once they finally arrive. She wonders what their laugh will sound like and whether or not they will have Sam’s blonde hair, like Peter, or whether her darker eyes and hair will win through.

Above all else, though, she wonders if they will be happy with the start they have been given. She hopes so.

#

Jim rolls his eyes when he sees Sam’s name come up on his caller ID. In all fairness he hasn’t spoken to Sam or his mother in almost two days, so he can understand why Sam’s calling. But it’s 00:04; doesn’t the guy ever sleep?

“‘lo?” Jim answers, trying to sound as if he’s just woken up. He hasn’t of course. He and Leonard have only just gotten into bed themselves. After Janice and Jodie left around half past ten they had a lot of clearing up to do. Physically and emotionally. If that meant they ended up curled around each other on the sofa watching  _ The Fox and the Hound _ , and Jim ended up getting a little teary eyed…  _ well _ , it’s been cathartic at least.

“I didn’t mean to wake you,” Sam says, although he sounds unapologetic. “But you haven’t called since Leo kicked us out two nights ago and I’m getting a bit worried, little brother.”  

“Leo? Are you two actually friends now or something?”

“He’s an ally, I guess. For now, anyway. But you’re okay, yeah?” Sam prods.

“Yeah, Sammy. I’m fine. We had Janice and her girlfriend round her dinner tonight. I threw a bit of a wobbly but Bones and I talked it out. I really am gonna get clean this time. Properly. No slips, you know?”

“That’s good to hear, Jim,” and Jim can hear Sam smile on the other end of the line. “But don’t be a stranger, all right? I know this political stuff is hard for you. I know you hate the press. I do too, so I don’t blame you. But me and Mom? We’re here for you, okay? Why don’t you and Leonard come around for lunch tomorrow. Nothing formal. Just a catch up? Peter misses you like crazy.”

Jim nods and then belatedly realises he actually has to speak because Sam can’t see him. “Yeah. Yeah, that sounds good.”

“Okay, well I’ll let you sleep. Night, Jim. Love you.”

“Love you too. Night.”

#

Leonard wakes up to delicate kisses along his pelvis. He stretches his legs, arching his back and stealing his hipbone away from Jim’s lips. It’s a futile attempt at resistance. A resistance Jim scoffs in the face of, holding Leonard’s hips in place and licking a wet stripe alongside his treasure-trail by way of reprimand. Leonard chuckles, trying to wiggle his hips out from Jim’s grasp, but Jim is unrelenting, pressing his nose into the soft skin of Leonard’s belly, brushing it through his treasure trail and pressing a kiss to the flat plain that leads to Leonard’s cock.

Now he can’t help but groan, letting his head roll back against the pillow.  _ Resistance really is futile _ . Leonard smirks. Surrender is his  _ only _ option.  Jim’s mouth manages to deviously avoid Leonard’s cock, kissing, instead, over the crease of his groin and the inner seam of his thigh before mouthing wetly, albeit faintly, at his balls.

“ _ Fuck _ , Jim,” Leonard rasps. Desperately trying not to buck his crotch into Jim’s face, Leonard clutches at the sheets, hoping for some sort of magic wave of calmness to wash over him. He doesn’t want to heat up  _ too _ quickly. He wants to wait Jim out and see what the younger man has in store.   

Leonard really hopes it’s a blowjob.

When he feels the tip of Jim’s tongue tease a line up the underside of his half-hard cock, Leonard almost turns dizzy as the rest of his blood rushes south. He reaches his hand down his torso, dragging his thumb over a nipple and pressing down on his thigh before loosely fisting his hand into Jim’s hair. Leonard opens his eyes just in time to see Jim smirk before swallowing hiss erection. Jim stills then, with Leonard’s cock half-engulfed in his mouth, and looks up at him, daring, teasing…

So Leonard slowly rocks his hips back, pressing his ass into the mattress before rocking forward again, not making Jim take an inch more than he was a few seconds ago. The smug grin is clear in Jim’s eyes, glittering like an unopened bottle of Bombay Sapphire—Leonard’s never liked the taste of gin, but he could drown himself in Jim’s eyes—and suddenly more of Leonard’s cock is being enclosed in unyielding, wet heat.

The shock of two lubed fingers presses at Leonard’s asshole, and his breath catches. Leonard didn’t even notice that Jim had the lube with him, let alone that he had already put it to use. Spreading his legs a little wider, Leonard bears down around the pads of Jim’s fingers, and Jim pushes his hand forward, burying his fingers as deep as they can go into Leonard’s body. The dual stimulation of his dick and prostate sends Leonard into a writhing frenzy; he doesn’t know whether to shove the head of cock down Jim’s throat or press back on Jim’s fingers. Jim’s decided to multi-task for the both of them. He’s completely unfazed by Leonard’s quivering abdomen and tense thigh muscles. Reveling in it.

Leonard can’t stop himself from coming. He has no control over his body. It’s all Jim. Around him. Inside him. And it’s over far too soon. His orgasm leaves him loose-limbed and pliable, and Jim takes full advantage of that, crawling back up the length of the bed and draping himself over Leonard, sliding his calf over Leonard’s before he whispers, “We’re having lunch at Sam’s. We need to leave here by eleven.”

_ It’s 10:21. _

#

In theory, lunch is a lovely idea. Winona should have a great afternoon spending the day with her two boys, their significant others, and her grandson, even if she has no idea what to expect.  _ Should _ . You know, there’s always the possibility of something going wrong. Sam punching Leonard again, for example, or Jim turning up with white powder unwiped from his philtrum. Maybe Leonard will bring his wife and her lover around for sandwiches too and they can stage a tea party on the ceiling. She scoffs. The Kirk family really knows how to put on a show; their life has become like an over-dramatic reality television series.

And Winona could really do without that transformation, right now.

Maybe she ought to look into hiring new script writers. She scoffs again, and follows it up with a sigh.

“G'an'ma!”

Peter toddles towards her over the lush green lawn of Sam and Aurelan’s Victorian conversion. It’s a beautiful house and they both pride themselves on being able to give their son this suburban haven. Paying its mortgage has been slightly difficult the last couple of months, what with Aurelan being on maternity leave and not having her usual salary, as a full time financial advisor, to supplement Sam’s income. But they seem to be managing it, Winona thinks Tiberius might have something to do with it, but god forbid she begrudge the man his grandfatherly proclivities.

Winona catches the two-year-old as he launches himself at her and she pulls him up onto her hip, smoothing his blond hair and kissing his chubby little cheeks. Peter giggles in response and hides his face in the crook of her neck.

“Is Jim here yet?” she asks, looking across the last few yards of the lawn to where Sam is standing by the front door.

“Yeah, he and Leonard have been here about ten minutes.” Sam nods, stepping aside so Winona can come through.

“Hey, Mom,” Jim greets from the hallway. He holds his hand out for her to take and bends to kiss her cheek. “I’m sorry about the other day,” he whispers, still stooped towards her. “But I’m dealing with it. Bones has been great.”

“I’m glad to hear that, baby.” Winona smiles. He looks well, at least. That’s the main thing.

“Would you like a spritzer?” Aurelan asks when Winona enters the open-plan kitchen diner. Leonard is leaning against the breakfast counter and Winona watches as Jim follows in behind her and sits on the high stool beside him. Peter clambers onto his lap and finally settles. They could pass for normal like this, on a quiet Sunday afternoon having lunch together.

“Yeah.” Winona nods. “Sure, thanks.”   

“You okay, Win?” Aurelan asks.

“I’m fine, really. I just—it’s nice to have everyone together. Safe and sound.”

Jim looks down, his cheeks colouring. Winona sighs; she hadn’t meant for it to be directed at him. Everything has just been so unsettled of late—granted, she’s been the source of the majority of it—and Winona really is just happy to see her family has been able to remain intact.

“So you saw Janice yesterday,” Sam begins, redirecting the conversation. “How was she?”

Janice Rand spent more time in the Kirk house growing up than she did her own. From the age of twelve, she and Jim had pretty much tied themselves together, sometimes literally. Winona recalls the day she got a phone call from Jim’s junior high telling her that she would have to come in and collect the two children who refused to remove the ribbon they had tied around their wrists so that Janice could skip Algebra. They were such sweet kids. She doesn’t know where she went wrong with them. What was the tipping point?”

“Good.” Jim shrugs. “Same as always, you know Duchess. Her girlfriend is nice.”

“I thought she was dating that Footballer from Maine?” Sam questions.

“That was like ten months ago, Sam. Keep up.” Jim laughs and the last thread of tension strung up through the room is cut. Aurelan chuckles too, then, and Sam scoffs.  “Daddy’s so silly, huh, Peter Pan?” Jim teases, bouncing the toddler until he’s giggling too.

“What does she do? The girlfriend, I mean,” Sam asks, setting out a bowl of fresh fruit salad and a tray of mini pastries.

“She said she worked in film, didn’t she?” Leonard recalls. “Editing?”

“Hmm.” Jim nods, still enamoured by Peter’s laughter. Winona thinks Jim could make a good father. She wonders whether or not it’s something he’s ever considered. He’s never spoken about children, never given any indication of his own interest. Jim’s afraid, she thinks. Of screwing up. Of getting himself killed and leaving them like George left his children.

Jim’s still young, though. He has his whole life ahead of him. Sometimes Winona thinks Sam and Aurelan started too early. She was nearing thirty when she fell pregnant the first time, while Sam’s already preparing for his second.  But they’ve taken to parenthood like a duck to water. Aurelan is a confident mother, and Sam never lets Winona bully him into working late when he’s already made promises to be home. They’re a self-sufficient unit.

“Sam, run through and get that big jug in the pantry would you? I’ll make lemonade.”

“I’ll give you a hand,” Leonard offers, stepping up beside Aurelan who points him in the direction of sugar and ice and lemons while Sam heads off into the little room to the left of the kitchen.

“You’re good to have around.” Aurelan grins. “He’s a keeper, Jim.”

“Knew it the moment I saw him.”

“So romantic,” Leonard teases.

“You know me, Bones. I’m a sweetheart.” Jim smirks, lifting Peter off his lap to he can reach over the breakfast table and draw Leonard into a kiss.

It’s strange for Winona to see them like that, so open and casual. It’s natural and easy and she doesn’t know when they went from sleazy affair to established boyfriends, but she must have blinked and missed it. Or maybe this is what Jim’s been talking about all along. Maybe this is how her son could be so certain that his lover was going to choose him over his marriage. Winona’s only met Leonard on a handful of occasions—and in various states of undress—and she hasn’t been too eager to give the man much of a chance.   

It’s quite clear she’s gotten the man all wrong. He isn’t a danger to her and her family. He isn’t a liability. He isn’t trying to suss them out and break them apart. He’s just a man who has made mistakes, just like they all have, and a man who is now trying to make things right again.

“Yeah, like tooth rot,” Leonard mutters when he pulls away from Jim, quickly leaning forward again to kiss Jim’s forehead and tap the end of Peter’s little button nose.

“I hope you don’t mind my asking, Leonard,” Winona starts hesitantly, “but how is your wife faring?”

“ _ Mom _ .”

“I wasn’t—”

“It’s okay, Winona,” Leonard says, frowning at Jim. She realises he’s trying to keep the peace. In a Kirk house it probably  _ would _ take an outsider to do that job well. “She’s doing much better. I spoke to her on the way over here. They’re thinking of discharging her this evening. We’re signing the papers when she gets back to DC.”

“I wasn’t asking for that reason,” Winona says, suitably abashed. “I know it must be hard. I understand you’re remaining on quite good terms.”

“Strangely enough,” Leonard agrees with a nod. “I uh, I think she’s invited herself over for dinner when they get back.”

“It’s a divorce party,” Jim chirps in with a smirk. “They’re all the rage in LA right now.”

“You’re an idiot,” Leonard scoffs.

#

They’re just discussing doing something like this again next Sunday when Leonard’s phone rings. He looks down and frowns at the display.

“I uh—I have to take this,” he says, getting up and walking into the hallways.

But Jim hears him greet the person on the other end of the line. He hears Leonard say, with uncertainty, “ _ Pops _ ?”

The rest of the table looks at Jim awkwardly, and all he can do is shrug. “He hasn’t spoken to his father yet, but his mother made her position very clear.”

“How anyone can be so narrow-minded…” Aurelan trails off with a frown. “It makes me sick.”

“Eleanora believes that her God condemns homosexuality.” Jim shrugs. “She’s just trying to keep her son out of Hell.”

“Or save face with the rest of the high society mothers,” Aurelan mutters. Aurelan has seen this sort of bigotry first hand when her younger cousin, Laura, came out as a lesbian on her twenty-first birthday. Her father, Aurelan’s paternal uncle, subsequently uninvited her to their annual family gathering last Christmas Eve. “Even people that profess not to care end up jumping off the deep end because they don’t want to be the ones to have bore the queer kid. It’s fucking ridiculous.”

“Mommy said a ba' word,” Peter whispers who Jim who nods gravely and frowns at Aurelan.

“She’s naughty, huh?” he whispers back, trying not to laugh when Peter nods frantically.

“Come on, Mister. I’m gonna take you up for a nap,” Sam says, lifting the child off of Jim’s lap. “Give Mommy a chance to wash her mouth out.”

Aurelan rolls her eyes and huffs. And in that moment, love swells in Jim heart because  _ damn _ did Sam get lucky. This woman is a fucking dream. He leans over in his seat and kisses her cheek. “You’re a fucking  _ dream _ , did anyone ever tell you that?”  

“Only you, Jimmy.” She smiles, setting her hand over his.

The moment is broken when Leonard reenters the room, looking like he’s had the air punched out of his lungs.

“Bones?”

“Uh—” He rubs his hand over his face, pinching the bridge of his nose. It’s bad news. “My Daddy’s sick, Jim. Really sick.” Leonard’s breath catches, like he can’t believe this is happening to him. He leans against the counter to keep himself upright and Jim bounds out of the chair to set his hands on the man’s waist. “Stage four spinal cancer,” he whispers, shaking his head in disbelief. “They’re giving him a month. Maybe two.”

“Oh, Jesus,” Jim whispers, squeezing Leonard’s sides, trying to reassure him somehow. “Did he say anything else? I mean—”

“He said Mama wasn’t gonna tell me. She said it was probably my fault, you know? Christian karma,” he scoffs bitterly, eyes bloodshot. “He said he doesn’t care who I love. That it doesn’t matter, that love is love and he’s just glad there ain't grandbabies involved now that me an’ Joce are getting a divorce. He said he’s not doing radiotherapy. He doesn’t want treatment. The tumour’s already got secondaries an’ they’re crushin’ his spine... He’s gonna be in so much pain, Jim.” Leonard’s voice cracks and he pulls in a deep breath before expelling it again. He casts his eyes up at the ceiling to avoid letting his tears spill.  

Jim pulls Leonard into an embrace, fisting a hand in his shirt at the small of his back. “I’m so sorry,” Jim murmurs. “I’m so sorry.”

“I need to go to him. My Mama ain’t gonna be able to do everything. And he won’t go back to the hospital. He won’t be a patient in a town that he used to doctor. He’s bein’ so  _ stubborn _ . He’s too proud.”

“We’ll book flights, tonight, we’ll—”

“She won’t have you in the house.” Leonard shakes his head. “But I can’t—”

“Hey,” Jim soothes, setting his forehead against Leonard’s. “You’re not doing this on your own, okay? I’m here, I swear to god I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”

“He’s gonna die, Jim,” Leonard whispers, so quiet that it almost makes no sound at all.

Just the sound of Leonard’s heartbreak.


	12. The Little Things

The best flight Leonard is able to get them on, leaving this evening, departs from Baltimore at 22:00. That gives Leonard and Jim enough time to leave Sam and Aurelan’s, drive back to the penthouse, pack, and make the appropriate phone calls—one that includes informing Jocelyn of the necessary details of the situation and asking her to give their lawyer a call so they can begin getting papers drawn up and the divorce process moving. Leonard also spends twenty minutes on the phone to the hospital informing them that he needs to take unpaid leave but that he’s unable to give them much of an idea as to when he’ll be back. They ask him to keep them informed, but Leonard thinks they sound less compassionate and more put out, which leaves Leonard wondering if he’ll have a job to come back to.

Will he come back at all?

They leave the apartment at quarter to seven, taking a cab for the fifty-five minute journey to the airport—which turns out to be more like an hour and twenty, not that Leonard is counting. They check in, walk aimlessly around Duty Free for a few minutes before giving up and throwing themselves into the row of seats closest to their departure gate. Jim books himself a hotel in Atlanta and a rental car using the free airport wi-fi while Leonard drowns himself in coffee. Leonard absently wonders whether his old Chevy is still parked in the garage or whether his mother ended up selling it. He hasn’t been home a lot since he left for Mississippi twelve years ago. The last time he checked it was there, but that could have been four or five years ago now.

Because that place isn’t his home. The house his parents live in now was a new feature of his life when he was halfway through high school. His childhood home is a little further out, on the outskirts of the little town of which the McCoys have always been a part. It’s a smaller house too, not like the monstrosity of the obnoxiously named McCoy Manor.

His mother’s changed a lot over the years. He’s heard wealth does that to some people.  

The flight should be the worst two hours of Leonard’s life, but Jim’s company is far more reassuring than anyone else he’s ever flown with, and his aviophobia is just about tolerable. He figures it has nothing to do with the fact they hold hands most of the flight.

The McCoy family isn’t an extensive one. His father has two sisters, Barbara and Joanna, but they live their own lives with the families of the men they married. Now, Leonard sees them on the occasional Thanksgiving but not much more than that. His paternal grandmother died a few years back—her husband died when David was a boy—which seemed to provide less need for the siblings to get together. Besides, David McCoy, Leonard’s father, is the younger brother by quite some years and so—at least, it always appeared this way to Leonard—he can never quite find much to say to his sisters.

Eleanora is the only child of a former Congressman. While she was quite liberal in her younger days, age and status seem to have turned many of her beliefs quite conservative. She has soured, like bad grapes unfit to make wine.

When they finally make it out of the airport and into the rental car, Leonard just wants to drag Jim home and curl around him in a nice warm bed. “Don’t go to the hotel,” he murmurs, even though he knows he shouldn’t. “Let me bring you back with me.”

“You said—”

“I’m sick of hiding, Jim. If I’m there, you’re going to be there. The house is more than big enough for all of us. My Mama can cope.”

#

There is a man sitting in her kitchen that Eleanora does not _know_ , but she _does_ recognise him.

Although, he appears to be less trashy in person than he did in the photographs that were plastered across the magazines at the hair salon. In those photographs he looked like a raggedy street urchin. Here, now, sipping coffee from one of her white china mugs, he looks like a respectable young man. Even though he's wearing cotton pyjama bottoms and his hair has been hurriedly brushed, he looks upright and well bred. _Decent_.

But not for her son. Not for Leonard.

“What are you doing in my house?” she asks.

Jim Kirk stills in surprise, the coffee cup halfway to his mouth as he turns to look at her, standing in the doorway. His eyes are like the ocean. Leonard always did love the sea. They used to spend two weeks in Savannah every summer when they stayed with her parents. Leonard had been a complete water baby. But they haven’t been to Savannah in a decade and Eleanora has no idea if her son still loves to swim.

“Mama,” Leonard admonishes, just in time to save his lover from her ire. He’s got a jug of sweet tea in one hand and a breakfast bar in the other.

“Raid my pantry, why don’t you.” She sniffs at him and makes an unamused sound, looking away from Jim. “I told you I wanted nothing more to do with you.”

“Lucky I’m not here for you then.” Leonard doesn’t even look at her when he speaks, which annoys her more than she wishes it would. She wishes she could just shun him completely, rip him out of her heart and bury him under the soil of her flower beds.

“How dare you break into my home at nine in the morning and speak to me like that,” she grits out, pursing her lips and stepping further into _her_ kitchen.

“We got in about one o’clock last night. And I didn’t break in, I used my key.”

“I don’t want you here,” she snaps, hoping the venom in her voice might make his heart hurt as much as hers does.

“I'm here for Pops!” Leonard barks, setting the jug down with an ominous crack. She watches Jim flinch at the harsh movements and reach for a paper towel to wipe up the splashes of lemonade that escaped over the rim of the jug.

“He’s out of his mind. He’s dying and he’s scared and he has some ridiculous notion in his head that having you here will make his passing easier. He’s sick and he’s deluded and I want you out of my house!” Eleanora can feel herself screeching but she can’t help it. She’s angry and terrified and her husband is terminally ill and she just wants to hold her little boy in her arms, but he’s not little anymore; he’s a liar and a cheat and a damned _abomination_.

“I’m his son,” Leonard says, so quietly. Almost as if he’s not sure that it’s still true. “And I’ll stay until he no longer wants me.”

“Have you seen him?”

“He was sleeping when I looked in on him last night, figured he’d be staying in the front room. He’s painting again.”

“He says he wants to keep his hands from shaking for as long as possible,” Eleanor says, and she can feel tears in her eyes. She wipes at them and frowns. “Why did you bring him here?” she demands, eyes alight with fire she wishes she could use to burn Jim down.

“Because I love him, Mama. I know it’s hard for you to get that, but Jim is here because I need him here. And I want him here.” Leonard’s voice is easy and measured. Leonard’s never really been much of a diplomat; he must be calming down as he gets older.

“It isn’t right,” she states.

“There isn’t anything more right from where I’m standing,” Leonard counters. “Soon, Joce and I are gonna be legally divorced, Mama. We’re already drawing up the papers. We just have to live apart for six months and then none of that will be hanging over our heads.”

“I’m not talking about your marriage, Leo—”

“Then I don’t wanna hear it. If you’re just plannin’ to spout your bigotry then you can go an’ do it to someone else.”

“ _This is my house._ ”

“Well, maybe you should try an’ behave like a polite hostess then, huh?”

                                                                        #

His every breath is a wrong move, or at least that’s what it feels like to Jim. Even with the vastness of the house there seems like nowhere to hide himself away from Eleanora McCoy’s judgement. Any room he walks into reminds him that Leonard was once the cherished son, the beloved boy—even the house wants to make him painfully aware how much he’s resented, as if he didn’t already know. But there’s nothing he can do. Eleanora has made it very clear that she wants nothing to do with him and that he is an unwelcome addition to her house. But she is out now, and Leonard is reuniting himself with his father. So Jim has decided to escape the imprisonment of Leonard’s suite and explore the house.

It really is astounding. It’s everything one would expect from a house owned by a family like the McCoys, old and new money gained from status and skill. It is an old building, like a grand mansion lifted right out of a painting of the Civil War, and it maintains that old-world style all the way through. Part of the house, the part that the family uses, is comprised of a front parlour, a cloakroom, a downstairs bathroom, and a drawing room; there is an open arch that leads into a second, smaller, parlour which opens into a kitchen and adjoining pantry, then a dining room and then a conservatory. On the second floor there is a large sitting room and a sizable library adjoined by two smaller rooms which Leonard has already explained to Jim are David’s private rooms. One is his study and another is an open room with a glass roof: his painting room. The bedroom to which David has been moved, now that he is ill is also on the second floor; Jim guesses it has an en-suite. On the third floor are two more bedrooms, huge rooms. The first is  the room in which Leonard spent his last few years as a teenager—the room that Jocelyn and Clay began their affair in—and the second is Eleanora’s bedroom. They also have an en-suite each, and a ridiculously-sized closet. Although, Jim is just assuming that fact about Eleanor’s bedroom since he hasn’t dared to take a look inside it.

There is a second part of the house—joined to the first by a wide, stately corridor with big bay windows on either side—which mirrors the first in size and shape but is comprised of an entirely different layout. On the ground floor there is an open area, a ballroom type space and a set of back rooms where Jim finds a second kitchen—although it looks more like a restaurant kitchen—and a larder. The second floor is where Leonard and Jim are staying.

Yes, the _entire_ floor. It is a guest suite, encompassing a sitting room, master bedroom, an en-suite, and a vanity room, as Jim is now choosing to call the closets.

The third floor is a carbon-copy of the second. He’s stayed in hotel suites less extravagant. Winona’s Shepherd Park home is by no means small—it’s a five bedroom house for Christ’s sake, and there’s an _indoor pool_ —but it’s tiny in comparison to this. Jim feels a little lost in it all.

A little lonely.

Perhaps that’s why Eleanora McCoy is so bitter. She misses her baby boy, and now he’s gay and might never have any grandchildren for her to fill this massive house with. It’s just a hollow shell, full of potential but no laughter, no memories.

There’s a piano in the library, at which Jim sits down to play. Hopefully it’ll settle his nerves some.

He loses himself in slow melodies that Tiberius always liked to hear him play when he was younger, Swing and Jazz and the Blues. His fingers dance over the keys, smooth and fluid and he feels at peace after so long on the edge. It’s strange to think he could find a sense of calm in this house, he didn’t think he would.

“I always preferred Willie Nelson’s version,” a voice says from behind him.

Jim stills for a moment, heart picking up a couple of paces, before he continues playing the last few bars of _Georgia On My Mind_. He’s stalling, he knows. But he’s not sure if he’s ready to face David McCoy yet. He doesn’t know what to expect.

He turns slowly and sees a man with Leonard’s eyes set against white hair and a frail frame. He looks sick. Jim can’t deny that. It’s a shock to him even though he has nothing to compare it to. No before and after. He can only imagine what Leonard felt.

“My grandfather always liked Billie Holiday,” Jim says gently. “It’s the way I learned to play it.”

“You play well,” David grants, sitting down in one of the armchairs to the left of the piano, over by the wall of books. “Do you mind if I intrude?”

Jim just shakes his head, lost for words at the man’s grace and dignity in the face of such tragedy. In the face of death.

Jim’s fingers begin playing _I’m a Fool to Want You_ before he’s even registered what they’re doing. The lyrics have reminded him of Leonard ever since they met. He tells David as much—in a quiet, secretive voice—but he doesn’t understand his reason for doing so.

“And why are you a fool, James?” David wonders.

“He was married.” Jim shrugs. “I always thought I’d end up losing him. Why would he choose me? You know?” There is a look in David’s eyes that says he knows exactly why his son would choose Jim. It makes Jim pause for a second, considering. “You knew, didn’t you? That he was gay?”

“Saw him kissin’ one ‘a his friends from school in the meadow back behind the creek of our old house,” David admits with a slow, lethargic nod. He swallows and drags his eyes away from Jim’s to look over at the far window. “ He was fourteen. I never said a word. Maybe I should’a but I thought I’d let him make up his own mind to tell us. Then he started going steady with Jocelyn. It wasn’t my place to interfere.”

“You’re his father,” Jim says. “It’s always your place, isn’t it?”

“Play another,” David instructs. “Something soft.”

Jim snorts slightly, shaking his head before turning back to the piano; he plays the gentle tune of Willie Nelson’s _Crazy_ and feels a spark of something warm inside his chest when he hears David begin to hum. Jim’s got a small smile on his face when he hears Leonard enter the room and stand in the doorway, no doubt watching the scene before him with a furrow in his brow.

“You never said you could play country,” Leonard says when the song is over.

“Winona’s mother liked Patsy Cline; she taught me to play when I was a kid. She used to make me learn them all by heart.”

“Looks like it paid off,” Leonard whispers, gesturing to his father whose eyes are now closed. “He said he ain’t been sleeping.”

“Sometimes the little things help.”

“Yeah, yeah they do.”


	13. The Tide

His father wants to die. It’s as simple as that, and yet Leonard has no idea what he’s supposed to do. Leonard is a doctor; he’s  _ supposed _ to fix this. And  _ that  _ is what his father should be asking of him. Not his. Not death. 

Then he walks in to witness Jim playing the piano, an instrument he doesn’t think anyone in the McCoy family has used since his great-grandfather Horatio was alive. It’s just another piece of heritage that has been moved from house to house out of obligation, like Savannah McCoy’s precious crystal vase—which Eleanora despises—or the pocket watch that lies forgotten in a box in a drawer who knows where. David never used it, although Leonard remembers his grandmother keeping it in her apron to time her cooking. Savannah McCoy was a peculiar woman; she lost her husband young and folk said it made her  _ eccentric _ . Leonard thinks they just had a problem with the fact she didn’t attend Church on Sunday and that she let her two daughters run wild in denim dungarees. 

Jim’s always been a stunning pianist, but it is strange to think the music could lull his father into a sleep that has otherwise avoided him for so long. David should have told Leonard sooner; he shouldn’t have kept his illness a secret. Leonard’s a doctor, he could have done something. He could have  _ helped _ . But there is nothing Leonard can do now. David is destined to live out the remainder of his life in slow, painful days that are wrapped up in darkness and silence. 

Well, now that Jim’s here—with his fingers ghosting across the keys of an old, unloved piano—maybe that silence can be broken. 

Leonard leads Jim out of the library, intending to head downstairs to start preparing dinner, but Jim pulls him into a tender kiss against the banister. The small of Leonard’s back is pressed to the rail and Jim’s hands are on his waist, pulling him into the kiss. It’s like the peacefulness of the library has made him even more tenacious now that they’ve exited. The kiss is affectionate but dogged and when Jim starts pulling them backwards, up the stairs to the third floor, Leonard knows where this is going. 

And it’s totally okay with him—more than okay even—to feel himself be guided through the door of his old bedroom, shoved up against the wall and kissed for all he’s worth. It’s totally okay that he whines at the loss of Jim’s mouth on his, but it’s even more okay for him to be settled by the sound of Jim’s knees thudding against the hardwood floor as he tugs Leonard’s jeans down to suck his dick. 

His orgasm crashes over him like a heavy wave against his thighs, unbalancing him and leaving his knees weak. Jim is like that, you see; like Leonard’s own personal Atlantic Ocean. The easy white surf and the rough, storming undulation. Like water, Jim is a paradox. Breathtaking, breath catching, breath  _ stealing _ . Life giving, and yet oh so dangerous. 

But right now, in this very moment, Jim is giving it all he’s got. Laying Leonard own on the bed and fucking into him with all the intensity of a man who is steadfastly in love but has no idea how to ease Leonard’s grief. So Jim uses his body. Tactility is Jim’s first point of call in every situation: a punch; a kiss. They move together almost like they’re fighting: Leonard fighting back tears and Jim fighting his own demons who have now become intermixed with Leonard’s. Jim has his hands around Leonard’s wrists as his chapped-red lips suck livid bruises into Leonard’s shoulders and throat. 

Leonard doesn’t come a second time, but he soon feels the stickiness of Jim’s semen inside him. Jim makes a moves to roll off of Leonard but the doctor stops him, keeping Jim snug inside him until they’re both soft. They’re messy and spent, and this is way more healing than it should be. Leonard almost feels nourished. Like a dog, mange-riddled and starving, rescued and nursed back to health. 

But the relief doesn’t last. 

In the end, they have to separate themselves, shower, and redress. They have to go back downstairs and face Eleanora, who is no doubt home from her outing. 

In the end, Leonard has to remember his father is dying and no one—not Leonard, not Jim, not any of the best doctors in the country—can save him. 

#

When she catches them sneaking down the stairs, Eleanora lets her face twist into open disgust. They’re holding hands—of all things—just loosely, almost  _ absentmindedly _ , but Leonard has love bites all over his throat, garish and lewd, as if he’s been bitten by a savage animal. Eleanora sniffs pointedly, eyeing Jim with such virulence she fails to see how the young man hasn’t immediately dropped down dead or, at the very least, succumbed to evisceration.   

“You ought to wear a shirt with a collar, Leonard,” she reproaches, disdain coating her words like thick lacquer, blotting out the light.

He pulls his hand to his throat, holding his wounds tentatively, as if he can make them fade. From his body or her memory, she isn’t sure.

“And you ought to behave with a little more maturity,” she adds, glaring at their linked ring fingers. “It’s like having two fumbling school children in the house; it’s unbecoming.”

“I’m almost thirty,” Leonard replies, voice devoid of any indication of what he might be thinking. His eyes look more brown than the hazel she’s used to, but they are pale, not rich like chocolate. “Maybe you ought to let me live my own life. I seem to have managed well enough until now.”

“It’s clear we have very different definitions of the word ‘well’.”

Leonard scoffs, taking Jim’s hand more firmly and leading him down the hall towards the kitchen.

She wants to scream. She wants to holler until the foundations of the house begin to shake and come loose, until the bricks fall away and they are left with a house that mirrors the decimation of its interior. The devastation of her heart. She wants to cry and crumble and she doesn’t know how she stops herself.

A whimper escapes.

It reverberates around the damned hall like it’s a great stone cave.

Leonard stops, turning his head a fraction until she can see him in profile. The strong jaw that reminds Eleanora of her father. The big McCoy eyes. They are squinting now, as if he’s not quite sure he could have heard what he thought he heard.

Her weakness.

She wants him to turn to her. She wants to hold him close and run her fingers through his hair. It is dark and thick, and he is so like how David was… She cannot face a double loss. But she is destructive; she was as a girl: cutting the hair of her china dolls and getting mud on her white tights before school every morning.

Eleanora wants Leonard to turn and walk back to her, even though she fears she has already pushed him too far away.

“I’ll always love you,” he whispers, and she can see him open his mouth to say more, but he refrains. Until his spite, maybe, or his courage, gets the better of him and he continues. “Even though you might not feel the same.”

Turning his face again, he walks towards the kitchen door. Jim stops, shrugging out of Leonard’s grip to look at Eleanora properly. She wonders if it is his turn to reprimand her. Instead, he bites his bottom lip and then he cocks his head, eyes watching her sadly. It’s an act of pleading and it steals her breath. He’s pleading for Leonard, she’s sure. Not for her acceptance or for an easier life. He is pleading for a mother to love her son.

The tide changes and she steps forward as the current of those rapids brush against her. “Leo,” she calls out softly. Leonard has his hand curled around the brass doorknob that will gain him entry to the safety of the kitchen.

But he lets go of it and looks back. There is pleading in his eyes too, and hope.

“I’ve missed you,” she whispers. “You’ve grown so tall and so broad and I feel like I’ve missed it. You went off to college at seventeen too lanky and too damn skinny for your own good and I missed you becoming a man. I blinked and it’s ten years later and I don’t know my son anymore.”

“Ma—”

“No, Leo. Let me finish,” she insists. “I didn’t know what to look for to see that you weren’t in love with Jocelyn and I didn’t know what to look for to see—to see that you are in love now. I didn’t know,” she whispers, amazed at her own ignorance. “I didn’t know.” There are tears in her eyes and suddenly Leonard’s hands are warm on her elbows, doe eyes looking down at her with relief and concern and love and all she wants is to know who this boy is and where did all that love come from?

“I’m sorry. That I didn’t come home much during college. I’m sorry that we moved to Virginia and that we hardly made it back once a year. I was hidin’, I guess. Try’na be who everyone thought I was.”

He missed out on ten years of honesty, ten years that could have meant his happiness, and all because he knew she would never want a gay son. Eleanora feels sick to her stomach. This is shame like she’s never known. She thought she would never feel as mortified as she had been when she’d read that article, but she was wrong. Eleanora has become the monster hiding under the bed of her own son’s life and scaring him into the closet.

“Oh, Leo,” she whispers, closing her eyes. “I’m so sorry.”

“He’s a really good man, Mama,” Leonard promises her, not having to look back at Jim for Eleanora to know that’s to whom he’s referring.

“I’d like to get to know you again, Leo.” She smiles and then throws a furtive glance at Jim. “Both of you, if you’ll have me.” 

#

Forgiveness is an easy thing for Jim Kirk to hand out. He’s fucked up so many times before that he almost feels unqualified to hold a grudge. Life moves too fast, anyway. So if Eleanora McCoy can continue to play nice with Leonard, then she’s all right in Jim’s book. Leonard needs his mother right now, and holding onto their rocky past will only make the entire house miserable.

She’s still clearly uncomfortable with displays of affection between them—Leonard kisses Jim’s cheek when they’re bantering back and forth making dinner and she quickly averts her gaze—but she’s trying. And he understands people don’t just give up their homophobia overnight; it took Sam a little bit of getting used to first as well. Granted, Sam was sixteen when he found out about Jim and not sixty like Eleanora, but Jim is able to comprehend that it can be a difficult thing for people to get their head around. 

She’s trying, though, which is all that matters as far as Jim is concerned. 

After dinner, Jim leaves the two of them to talk things through and heads back up to the library. David is gone now, back to his bedroom perhaps, or into his adjoining paint room. There is a booklet of sheet music left on the chair Jim had been sitting on though that reads  _ Country Standards _ . Jim smirks; he can take a hint. He’d really only come back to the library to find a few books to take back over to their side of the house; although, saying that, Jim wonders if they won’t be sleeping upstairs from now on. It makes the most sense. 

He’ll talk to Leonard about it later. First, he needs to learn a couple of these songs. 

He starts with some more Willie Nelson.  _ Always On My Mind  _ and  _ Blue Eyes Cryin’ in the Rain _ . Leonard’s watching him by the time he’s played through them both three or four times each. He can feel the fond eyes boring holes into the back of his head but Jim just flicks through the pages of music, trying to find something he recognises. 

Jim feels as though he has an affinity with Johnny Cash, now that he’s older and wiser and—hopefully—on the right side of his drug addiction. Jim knows all about walking the line. 

The words of the song are iconic, but even if he didn’t know most of them on his own—and have them printed under each music bar—he doesn’t need to with Leonard murmuring them from the doorway. The song was written as some sort of pledge. A vow of devotion. That’s all Jim’s ever had when it comes to Leonard. Yeah, he thinks, he can understand where Cash was coming from. 

_ Because you’re mine, I walk the line. _

“Teach me,” Leonard says, sitting down on the edge of the stool beside Jim. They’re touching from shoulder to calf and Jim scoffs at the ridiculousness of the two of them trying to share a stool only a little bit bigger than the width of one of them. But he sets his finger over the keys and starts playing  _ Itsy Bitsy Spider _ and watches as Leonard scoffs at him, quickly following it up with an unamused glare. 

“Okay, okay.” Jim laughs He begins, instead, to play Beethoven’s  _ Für Elise _ very slowly, stopping after the first minute before the melody begins to build. Then he turns to Leonard, who shakes his head. “Come on, deft surgeon’s fingers like yours? You’ll do fine, Bones.” 

“No,” Leonard says with a more confident shake of his head. “I’ll watch a bit more first, I think.” 

Jim plays Mozart's  _ Fantasia _ , and without pausing he nudges Leonard’s shoulder and demands a kiss with a playful pout of his lips. Leonard concedes, his hands moving for Jim’s waist and pulling at him until Jim’s right hand falters, fleeing the piano keys to bury themselves in the hair at Leonard’s nape. Jim tries to keep up playing something, anything, one handed but with his body twisted as it is to face Leonard he gives up his attempt and lays his other hand over Leonard’s sternum. 

Leonard’s heart is racing. 

Jim knows they can’t fuck in the library, but he won’t say the thought doesn’t pass through his head. He might have even suggested it if Eleanora’s poorly timed entrance didn’t serve to slice them apart like a guillotine. 

“Oh,” she gasps, jaw tense and eyes cast down. “I should have knocked,” she realises and then steps back. 

“Oh, Elle, don’t be such a prude,” David calls goodnaturedly from somewhere in the hallway. 

“It’s just that...” She pauses again, turning to frown at David before bringing her smile back to the room. “Your father—well, both of us… We’d like you to stay upstairs, in the house. It’s closer, and easier, and God forbid anything happen to David—”

“Right here, darlin’,” David reminds gently with a roll of his eyes. He’s standing beside Eleanora now, with a hand on her shoulder. The physicality, the gesture and tone of voice—the accent, the  _ endearment _ —is so startlingly reminiscent of Leonard, it’s uncanny. It’s frightening. It makes Jim think of what he could lose one day. He wonders how anyone could get through this sober. If it were Leonard, Jim would be— 

He can’t bear to even think. 

“I know the suite is bigger…”

“ _ Ma _ ,” Leonard chides. “Of course we’ll stay up here; was gonna ask anyway. The suites are too big. They feel… impersonal.”

“That’s settled then,” David says, clapping his hands together. “But I’m gonna need you boys outta here now ‘cause I got some painting t’do.”

“I only came up here to grab some books,” Jim explains. “But I got your message,” he adds, tapping the crisp white pages of the booklet. 

“And yet y’still ended up playin’ Mozart.” 

“Mozart wasn’t from Nashville?” Jim asks, trying not to smirk. “ _ Huh _ , who knew?”

David laughs; it’s a booming sound with heart and soul even though right now he doesn’t look like he could lift much heavier than a twig. Jim notices how he’s holding himself up using the doorframe because he refuses to use a walking stick or have a wheelchair in the house. He can’t stand for long though, so really they should get out of his way and let him retreat into his painting haven.

When Jim gets halfway out the door, he notices that Eleanora is smiling too.

_ That’s progress. _


	14. 16 Hours

That night, Leonard doesn’t tell Jim about his father’s desire to be euthanized; he needs more time to take it in. He needs more time to tell himself  _ no _ , _ never _ . It’s against his oath, his morals. Assisting his father’s suicide would go against every fibre in Leonard’s body. He can’t. He  _ won’t _ . But now it’s three a.m. and he can’t sleep. When he closes his eyes he just sees a zombie-like corpse staring back at him. Sometimes the face belongs to David; sometimes it’s Leonard’s own face staring back at him.

He turns over and tries to burrow his face into the pillows.

“What’s wrong?” Jim whispers. He’s been a light sleeper as long as Leonard’s known him, and it’s even worse when he’s not taking drugs.

“I was gonna tell you,” Leonard mumbles. “I just don’t know how.”

“Find a couple of words, string them together,” Jim teases, pulling himself up so he’s sitting against the headboard. Leonard immediately moves closer, laying his head on Jim’s abdomen. He gets a hand in his hair for his troubles, fingers rubbing small circles into his temples.

“Daddy, he—he wants me to—he doesn’t wanna live like this. He wants me—“ but Leonard can’t say it.

“That’s why he called you home?”

“He said he just needed a day. Today. Just one perfect day with me. Wants to head out to the lake. He wants to go fishin’.” Leonard laughs but it cracks and fades to nothing more than a stifled sob. “I need more than a day, Jim. I can’t let him do this.”

“You don’t have to,” Jim whispers. “You take him out today and you bring him home and you go to sleep and you do the same every day until you can’t anymore. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. He’s scared, he’s proud and he’s stubborn. That’s all. That’s where this has all come from.”

“He’s in pain, Jim. He barely eats. He won’t let anyone help. He doesn’t wanna get to a place where he can’t fend for himself. He’s asking me for mercy. I don’t know if I can—“

“Leonard McCoy, look at me.” But Leonard doesn’t; he presses his face into Jim’s soft tummy and he hides, trying to bury every sin he’s ever committed, trying to look for absolution, in the core of Jim’s body. “Leo,” Jim repeats, and the whisper raises goose pimples all over his skin. Leonard tips his head back to meet Jim’s gaze. “You do what you think is right.”

“What would you do?”

“I don’t know; I’ve never had a father. Maybe I’d be selfish, keep him all to myself.”

“You think it’d be selfish if I don’t?”

“No.” Jim shakes his head and sighs. “But he’s your dad and he’s asking you to do this. It would be different, you know. If it wasn’t terminal. If the hospital had predicted him another year or two rather than a month. But one day really soon he’s not going to be able to get out of bed; it’s his spine, Bones, right? I mean, what would you do if you were in his position?”

“Accept the goddamned treatment,” Leonard snaps.

“You know he’s not doing that because he doesn’t want to prolong the heartbreak. I thought about it today, about what it would be like if it were you. You guys look so alike… Your mother has to watch him die, has to watch the love of her life fade away. And it doesn’t matter how much she makes a grab for him; he’s already too far out of her reach.” Jim tightens his fingers in Leonard’s hair. “I wouldn’t be able to do it, Bones. Not sober, at least.”

“She’ll hate me,” Leonard says, certain. “He hasn’t told her.”

“Would she know?”

“Well, no, I guess not. But—Jim, I can’t do that to him. I can’t kill my Daddy.”

“You have your answer, then, Bones,” Jim whispers, bending forward to kiss Leonard’s head. “But if the man wants to spend today fishing then you’re going to take him fishing.”

#

Jim kind of wishes he were invited fishing. It’s just him and Eleanora in the house, both sitting silently in the drawing room reading. It’s awkward and tense, but neither of them want to be the first to get up and admit defeat. 

“This is uncomfortable,” Eleanora says slowly, setting down her book on the arm of her chair. 

“Slightly,” Jim agrees. 

“I realise I know nothing about you, except that you play the piano and that you were—” she cuts herself off and Jim can’t tell if she’s ashamed or attempting to be considerate. 

“A substance abuser?” Jim supplies. He’s not sure  _ coke addict _ covers it anymore; Jim knows he needs to be careful around all illegal drugs now, and alcohol too. 

“They only mentioned cocaine,” Eleanora says. “The newspapers.” 

“It was my favourite,” Jim admits.

“It’s good that you’re better.” 

“I’m getting there.” 

“Leonard never had much sympathy for addicts growing up,” Eleanor mumbles, more to herself than Jim. 

“He doesn’t have much sympathy for them now. He hates my addiction. I don’t blame him. But he loves me, so he’s a little nicer.” Jim offers her a crooked smile and glances back down at his book. 

“He does love you,” she agrees. There is a clemency to her voice that suggests she’s trying to make sure Jim believes it. He doesn’t know why she’s indulging him like this, doesn’t know how she went from hating him to pitying him.  _ Is it pity? _ He wonders. Or is there a faint glint of something else?  _ Empathy?  _

“Never thought I’d hear you say that,” Jim says, watching for her reactions carefully. 

She sighs. Then she curls a finger around a loose strand of dark hair and tucks his behind her ear. “A part of me wishes that he was still with Jocelyn, living the life I always thought he should. A part of me wishes he’d never met you. But that part of me is a selfish one, and I’m trying to quash it. You seem like a good boy, Jim. A boy who’s try’na face his demons. I respect that. It’d be even better if you weren’t a Democrat,” she snipes, but Jim thinks she might actually be making an attempt at playful. 

“He’s one too, you know?” Jim points out, biting back a grin. 

“It’s just secret after secret with you two, isn’t it?” 

“Are you joking with me, Elle?” Jim smirks. 

“Oh it’s  _ Elle _ now, is it?” 

“Eleanora’s a bit of a mouthful.” Jim shrugs, scrunching up his nose in distaste. “So is Leonard.” Eleanora tries to hold in a choke and Jim’s eyes widen when he realise what he’s said. “I didn’t—I didn't mean  _ that _ ,” he promises. “I—”

“It’s all right,” she says with a delicate sniff. The corners of her mouth are upturned at the sight of his discomfort and Jim is distinctly reminded of Leonard. 

“You have a terrible mind, Mrs. McCoy,” Jim scolds, letting his own mouth ease into a smile. 

“Well, what else could I think? If he’s anything like his father—”

“Oh my god,  _ no _ .”

Eleanora laughs like Bones too. 

#

Watching David holding the fishing line confirms to Leonard just how weak his father is. They’re sitting on some rocks because David can’t stand and Leonard doesn’t want to make him feel any more decrepit than he must already be feeling. David keeps his hands low because it hurts to raise his arms; he won’t catch a single fish like that and they both know it. But then, this isn’t really about catching fish. 

“I can’t do it,” Leonard murmurs. “Not today, not tomorrow, not ever.” 

“You’ll do it because I’m asking you to, boy.” David chuffs out a laboured breath and repositions himself, trying to keep his weight evenly distributed to lessen the pressure on his spine. “This is my last day on legs, Leo. And I can’t put your mother through that.” 

“But _ I’m _ here. I can take care of you. Mama doesn’t have to do this alone,” Leonard urges. 

“It’s just a little extra morphine, Leo. Could happen in the ER to anyone.” David’s voice and eyes are tired. His entire body is tired. It pains Leonard to see it. His father used to be a burly man, as tall as Leonard with a stout frame and a well-fed gut. Now he’s a small one, emaciated and pale. 

And it’s only going to get worse. 

“Not in my ER. Not if I were running the place.”  

“I need you to do this for me,” David says, putting down the line and staring intently at Leonard. “I can’t lose myself in all of this, son. I need to go out while I’m still me. While there’s more than just a corpse in a bed. I can’t let her see me gettin’ to that. I’m scared of that, for me and your Momma, but I’m not scared of death. It’s comin’ for me now whether I like it or not. But I’d like to beat it to the punch.” 

“I can’t,” Leonard whispers. 

“You won’t. S’different.”

“You say that like I’m bein’ unreasonable!” Leonard argues. 

“Aren’t you?” David counters calmly. “Refusin’ the wishes of a dyin’ man?”

“You got more time. It doesn’t have to be today.” 

“A month, Leo. An’ I get sicker every day. Every day it gets harder for me to have the strength to get up outta bed an’ smile at your mother. Every day it gets harder to stomach this—this existence. I ain’t livin’, boy. This ain’t livin’.” David is out of breath when he finishes, and he’s wincing from the pain spiking at his tail bone. “I got this thing inside me the size of a fist and it’s crushin’ me from the inside out. I don’t wanna go like that; I don’t wanna wait for death.  _ I _ wanna know.  _ I _ wanna decide.” 

David wants the final say. Leonard realises that now, and he can’t say he blames him. 

“I’m scared,” Leonard admits. “I don’t know what to do without you. I want more time.” 

“You be brave, son. Be brave for me, huh?” 

Leonard doesn’t hear it over the sound of blood rushing through his head, but he thinks he says  _ I’ll try _ . 

#

The four of them sit down to dinner. David’s last, he hopes. He’s not Christ but this could be a supper to remember. Leonard is subdued, sitting across from him and picking at his crawfish. Eleanora seems to be having a little bit of fun with Jim, although he’s not sure he’s up on the joke. It’s good though, to see her acting kindly towards the kid. She’s always been a loving woman and he’d have hated to leave this world doubting that. 

She’s shining again, like the first glimpse of the moon in the pink-orange sunset of summer. Not bright and garish, not set against a sea of black, but serene and calming. That’s what he wants to see when he closes his eyes tonight. That’s the way he wants to hold her in his heart when he meets his maker. David McCoy is ready for death; all is right in his house. Leonard has come home. Finally in love. And he thinks Jim will be good for Leonard. He thinks that they will last. He can leave this world knowing everything that he will leave behind is in safe hands. 

He understands that Leonard wants more time. So does David, but there are no longer any good days ahead. There is only decline from here on out. There is only sorrow and the indignity of death. David would rather get it over and done with. He’s regretful that he had to ask this of Leonard, but he needs this done correctly. He doesn’t want to see another sunrise. His son can guarantee that he won’t. 

#

Jim knows that Leonard has agreed to euthanize his father by the resigned set of his shoulders and the tears that have been threatening to burst from his eyes since the McCoy men returned home from the lake. Leonard looks defeated. He looks as if a slight gust of wind could knock him for six and leave him a bawling wreck on the asphalt.

Leonard is teetering on the centre bar of a rusty see-saw: one side holds a seat of suffering; the other side a seat of freedom. Only, it isn't Leonard’s suffering, or his freedom. It is David’s and Leonard shouldn’t have to make his choice for him. 

The creak of the old metal must grate on Leonard’s ears because he’s frowning. Undecided still, perhaps? The tarnished metal quivers as Jim watches Leonard’s mind jump back and forward between one choice and its alternative. Jim swears he can see the orange-brown heat of corroded steel in Leonard’s eyes and Jim wonders how much assisting his father’s suicide will ruin Leo.

He wants to banish it, restoring the lively green and the glints of fresh nectar, the tawny brown and deep dark coffee roast. Jim wishes he could make it better. Wishes he had grease or oil or WD40 to loosen the nuts and bolts of the old children’s plaything. He wishes he could unburden Leonard of everything tonight holds in store for him.

But wishes are rarely fulfilled, or so is Jim’s experience of them.

“Come upstairs,” David motions. He leans on the table, hunched over and barely able to stand. “Play me something before I head to bed.”

_ To death _ , Jim thinks.

In that moment, Jim hates David McCoy.

He hates that he could ever have asked Leonard to do this. He hates that David will get to sneak away into the night like the last puff of smoke from a Cuban cigar, but it is Jim who will be left with the fall out—trying to clean the ash-burn in the carpet and scrape the sticky black tar from the inside of Leonard’s lungs.

Jim spends the next hour being told which pieces to play, from Bach to Chopin to Tchaikovsky. Jim’s glad he doesn’t have to make the decisions, just let David direct him through the music, because Jim is still reeling. He’s still angry and bitter and terrified. He still feels wicked and spiteful and oh so afraid.

If it were left up to him, Jim might have played a funeral march.  

#

The clock in David’s bedroom reads twenty-five to eleven. Leonard can still see the pitch black Georgia sky out of the window. David has asked him to leave the curtains open. He wants to see the stars. David has always thought there was something beautiful about the night sky; Leonard had watched him paint it for hours in the winter months when he was a kid. Black and navy and indigo. Too dark. Leonard’s always been afraid of the dark: the dark has something to hide.

The stars are not much of a comfort. They’re moving towards obliteration just like David is, and Leonard can’t bear the thought.

The morphine is clear.

His mother has said goodnight. Jim is waiting for him upstairs in their newly assigned bedroom.

Leonard is preparing for murder. Or at least that’s the way it feels. He is the hangman, slowly tiptoeing around the gallows with an ominous tread, the sound of metal-heeled boots on a rotten oak platform.

Or is he the hanged man?

Tonight will change him. Turn life as he knows it on his head. He will not leave this room in the same manner he entered it. There are two different Leonard McCoys inhabiting one body. They fight.

But only one wins.

David’s skin is already cold under Leonard’s hands. He finds the vein easy. Presses down on the plunger. Watches the liquid leave the barrel.

Pulls the trigger. Barrel of a shotgun.

_ Might as well be. _

“Thank you, Leo,” David whispers.

His pupils turn to pinpricks. His eyes are so big and brown, so rich.

Leonard feels a terrible spike of regret.

He wants to take it back, wind the clock  _ back _ . 

He feels sick to his stomach.

“Daddy.”

But he’s gone. His surgeon’s mind crudely looks up at the wall to note the time of death—23:01. Leonard sets the needle on the table. He shakes his head, only a fraction. And then suddenly he can’t stop. Tears roll down his cheeks; a sob is caught in his throat but he doesn’t remember how to make the sound materialise. He blinks, slow. Numb. He doesn’t remember. He didn’t say  _ goodbye _ . He didn’t say  _ I love you _ .

_ Thank you, Leo. _

Leonard wants to scream. He wants to run.

He wishes he were a boy again in little green dungarees. They would be corduroy and soft. And David would hold him close to his chest and lift him onto his shoulders and they would swim in the sea and feed the horses. David would be strong and healthy and he wouldn't let Leonard go.

But Leonard is no longer a boy.

Now, he is a man,

_ Or a monster. _


	15. Blood and Water

It’s four a.m. and Jim blinks awake from an uneasy slumber. He turns over, fitful but alert—half alert. Well, perhaps  _ vaguely aware _ is more apt.

Aware enough to know he is still alone in the bed, at least.

He pulls on a t-shirt. It isn’t one of his, he realises, smelling Leonard’s aftershave as he drags it over his head. There’s something else too, something even more inviting: it’s citrusy and fresh—the soap in their new en-suite, maybe—but not Leonard’s usual clinic smell. The shirt is too big for Jim. It has always been loose on Leonard, but it drowns Jim. The neck is so wide that it leaves one of his collarbones vulnerable to the cool air gusting through the house.

The hem sits below Jim’s ass, but he’s wearing boxer-briefs anyway and, even if they are a mite skimpy, it’s enough that Jim can walk around at this time of the morning and not feel indecent.

Jim stands in the kitchen doorway and feels a bit like a frightened child who has woken up from a nightmare and gone in search of a parent. Or maybe that’s just what he thinks he might look like to Leonard. Leonard, who is sitting on the floor with his back pressed against the counter with a bottle of Jim Beam in his hand but no glass.

The bottle is two-thirds empty.

“I’m sorry,” Jim whispers. He decides to kneel where he is rather than approach Leonard still standing. He shuffles forward on his knees until he’s met Leonard halfway. “Come to bed.”

“I killed him.”

Jim shuts his eyes against the strange onslaught of emotions. He wants to tell Leonard that that isn’t true. That euthanasia is different, even if it isn’t legal.

“You did as he asked,” Jim counters. He feels bile rise in his throat. David McCoy is lying dead in the second floor bedroom and they will have to ‘discover’ his body in the morning. They will have to tell Eleanora and break her heart.

And just when Jim thought she was starting to try and mend it.

Leonard mutters something that Jim doesn’t catch.

“Drinking won’t make it go away,” Jim murmurs, crawling closer. “Look at me, hey? I know better than anyone.”

“Go to bed.” Leonard chuffs out an aggravated breath. “I don’t wan’ you seein’ me like this.”

“That’s not fair at all.” Jim tries to smile, tries to look and sound reassuring. “You’ve seen me drunk plenty of times.”

“You’re clean, darlin’,” Leonard mumbles. “Doin’ so well…”

“I know, and seeing you like this isn’t gonna make me slip. Come on, Bonesy. Don’t torture yourself, come to bed. Please?”

“How can you even look at me knowin’ what I’ve done?”

“You’re a good man, Leonard McCoy,” Jim states, voice low and rough because David McCoy is dead and that means Leonard’s just lost his Daddy and Jim knows what it’s like to have to try and fill that abyss.

“I can’t be.” Leonard is shaking his head. Jim thinks that maybe it’s Leonard who looks like the frightened child, which means Jim has to be the strong one now.

“You are,” Jim urges. “You don’t have to try. You don't have to make an effort. It isn't a capability. It's a fact.”

Jim holds out his hand to Leonard who takes it hesitantly, setting the bottle of bourbon down on the floor and letting Jim pull him up until they’re both standing.

“I’ll get rid of it,” Leonard says, making a move to turn and pick up the bottle again.

“I don’t want it,” Jim promises. “I won’t touch it.”

Leonard makes an uncertain sound in his throat, Adam’s apple bobbing slightly as he swallows. Maybe he doesn’t trust Jim—not that Jim can say he blames Leonard for that. But Jim smiles, trying to reassure his lover of something— _ anything _ —although he’s not quite sure what. Everything  _ isn’t _ going to be okay. Leonard has lost his father, Eleanora her husband. David McCoy is  _ gone _ , and Jim feels a strange sadness at the thought. He’s only known the man three days, and, yet, Jim already feels like a different man from knowing him. A better one.

David had quiet, guiding wisdom. Like Tiberius maybe. It’s a bygone type of comfort. Jim will miss that.

“Come on,” Jim whispers, leading Leonard out of the kitchen and up the stairs to their bedroom. They don’t sleep, even after Leonard’s cried every tear he has left in him. They lie together, shoulder to shoulder on top of the duvet, letting the cool air wash over them.

Jim finds it hard not to roll onto his side and pull Leonard against his chest, but Bones can’t face that right now. Jim’s not stupid; he knows that Leonard needs time to feel numb. The doctor has never appreciated being mollycoddled.

So Jim waits for the hesitant touch of fingers against his own before he wraps his arms around Leonard, whispering words that don’t make much sense but mean everything.

_ We’ll get through this. _

_ He loved you so much. _

_ Just breathe, Bones. _

_ He’s not in pain anymore. _

_ I love you. _

_ You’re safe. _

_ I love you. _

#

Eleanora knows. She can feel it in her blood, pumping through her heart, half-empty now that she has lost the love of her life. She can feel the loss of David from this world like a wound. Leonard’s appearance at her bedside is just unneeded confirmation.

“Mama, I bought you tea,” he says, looking for all the world like a frightened child not quite ready to tell his mother he broke one of the saucers of her good china tea-set.

“Hot tea?” Eleanora notes. “It must be bad news.”

“I’m sorry,” Leonard whispers, tears pricking at his eyes.

“Sit with me a minute. Give me your hand.”

Leonard complies with both of her requests, perching on the edge of the bed beside her. He clutches at her hands and she exhales a steady, determined breath.

“Call the doctor’s office, and the coroner. And the pastor. I want to see him.”

“Ma—“

“Don’t you Mama me, Leo. There’s no point crumblin’; things need to be arranged. But first, I’d like a minute with him. He was my husband, Leonard, and there’s things I need to say to him.” She doesn't care that it sounds ridiculous. David’s death has stolen their opportunity for a last  _ I love you _ . It has stolen their next twenty years together. It has stolen everything. She has left herself open to burglary. She has watched Death walk into her house and take her biggest, most precious diamond right from the jewellery box—plucked out with greedy, emaciated fingers, bleached white like bone—and she has watched on, helpless. 

#

Christopher wakes up to the sound of Winona's cell phone aggressively vibrating across the bedside table, but when he sits up in the bed it is clear that Winona must have already awoken. After a moment to orient himself inside her bedroom, he hears the sound of running water coming from her en-suite. He smiles, thinking of her blonde hair wet and heavy in his hands, her skin slick and soft with soap. Christopher wants to drag himself out of bed and go to her, but the buzz of the phone distracts him. 

Upon glancing across the table, Christopher sees that the caller ID reads Jim.

He answers out of fear as much as obligation. 

"Mom—"

"You're mother's busy at the minute, son. What's up?" 

"David McCoy died last night. The funeral is in three days, I just wanted to let her know that. And that it means we'll probably be back sooner than anticipated." 

"Didn't even make it through the month..." Christopher takes a settling breath, trying to organise his thoughts. "Is Leonard okay? They, shit Jim, they must be in pieces." 

"Elle's holding up well, keeping a brave face. Bones is busying himself with all the arrangements. They're doing the visitation at the house, and then the funeral the following morning. Jocelyn is being discharged early so she can attend. Their flight gets in tomorrow evening." 

"How are  _ you _ holding up?" 

"I'm fine, Chris. No drugs here even if I wanted there to be, and, honestly, I don't." Jim sounds genuine at least, which is all Christopher can ask for. In fact, Jim sounds mature, rational. The sort of things that Christopher has only seen glimpses of but has always known lies under the frat boy facade Jim cakes all over himself like a shade too-dark foundation. "Give Mom my love though, okay? And Sam and Rae when you speak to them." 

"Don't feel the need to rush home, kid," Christopher says carefully. "The South sounds like it's good for you." 

"I gotta be strong, Chris. For Bones. He's held me up this far; I just need to get us the rest of the way." 

"You'll do just fine, Jim." 

"Yeah, I hope so. I'll try, anyway. I think I can manage just fine." And Christopher can hear the smile in his voice. It's somber, mournful... but he sounds sure. For once in his life this kid finally has a purpose, and it's finally making him an adult. 

Christopher is proud; like the father he'll never be to the son that'll never be his. 

#

People visit the house in flurries. Menageries of townsfolk with cake and bread, bottles of good whiskey or flowers. They kiss Eleanora's cheek and call Leonard a good boy. They say prayers at the dining table. They clutch each other's hands and speak of fond memories of their parish doctor. 

Jim plays Willie Nelson songs for hours each day leading up to the funeral. The night of the visitation, when the body is laid out in the casket in the drawing room, his music is the only thing that keeps Leonard from slipping. Slipping through the cradling fingers of his mother and slinking back to the shadows with a bottle of Bourbon and one of his father's cigars. 

The funeral is a black event, even though the sky is blue. Jim and Jocelyn flank him, his mother standing at the head of the grave, looking into the hole in the ground that now encases her husband with tears fresh on her cheek. Jim holds his hand, and if they see the gesture, no one utters a word of reprimand. 

"It'll get easier, Leo," Jocelyn promises him. "You're so strong, Leo." 

"Your lionhearted boy?" Leonard scoffs bitterly. The house is cold now that the guests have all left. The wake is over and he has made sure he hasn't touched a drop. But there is no one around now. Just Jocelyn and him sitting on the steps of the back porch. Jim is inside with Eleanora. Clay has retired to their suite. 

"Don't mock me, Leonard McCoy. I call you that and I mean it. I always will." 

"I killed him, Joce. He overdosed. I killed him." 

He lets the secret go in a single breath. Although he feels no lighter for it. 

"David McCoy. So proud. So stubborn." 

"He wanted dignity. All I could give him was death." 

"He would have thanked you, though. I know David. And I know that if it were you you would have asked the same of him." 

"Why put off until tomorrow what can be done today." Leonard nods. "I grew up on those words. Doesn't mean I feel any less responsible." 

"You have to let it go. Or it will eat you up until you're nothing but bile. Jim needs more than that." 

"He deserves more," Leonard agrees. 

"So fix up, Leo. Dust yourself off. Hold Pops close and then let him go too. Close your eyes and think about his smile. Carry that with you. Don't carry death." 

In that moment Leonard thinks he might fall in love with Jocelyn all over again and for the very first time. He leans forward to kiss her forehead. 

"Thank you," he whispers. "For everything, Joce. For being that pretty fourteen-year-old and for sayin' yes when I asked you to marry me. Even though I was askin' for all the wrong reasons." 

"You just make sure you never lie to me like that again." 

"I hope you and Clay are happy. Are you happy?" 

"Like it was with us in the beginning. I hope he doesn't end up gay as well." 

"I'll break his neck if he does." 

"Fool me once, right?" She smirks, then laughs. The sound breaks through the blackness, it matches the pinks and oranges and the deep purples of the sky. It is beautiful. 

Leonard can see a glimpse of life now, instead of death, and for that he will forever be grateful. 

#

Jim is in bed an hour or so before Leonard, who has been sitting alone in David's painting room since the sun set. And Jim has left him to his own devices. Jim knows that's what he needs right now. Jocelyn's presence seems to have settled him somewhat too and, though Jim is jealous, he does not begrudge them their love, even if there is still a string of the romantic kind entwined with the platonic. One pink strand, plucked from Cupid's own bow, that is surrounded by a field of yellow. 

Leonard will never not love Jocelyn. Jim is sure of that. But he is also certain in the knowledge that Leonard's love for him will not falter because of it. Their love is like the ocean. Ever-present and all-encompassing. 

With ripples and waves and tsunamis.

When Jim looks up, Leonard is standing at the foot of their bed with a white carnation, stolen from one of the many bouquets that consume the house. 

"I saw of it and thought of you." 

"White?" Jim smiles. To aid his recovery? To  _ mark _ it, in some way?

"Pure love and good fortune," Leonard recites with a small smile. "I want you to have both. I want to give you both." 

"I'll take your love, but this time, Bones, I'm ready to make my own luck."

Leonard clambers onto the bed, laying the flower on Jim's bare chest. The soft petals brushing his sternum. 

"You're such a romantic." 

"I lost my father three days ago, Jim. And I almost lost myself. But I won't. I can't. I love you too much to let go. Jocelyn reminded me of something tonight, that you let go of the hurt and you hold onto good things." Leonard looks so earnest, he's almost frowning. Jim can't help but chuckle. 

"You're delirious," he murmurs, letting Leonard brush their lips together. 

"I'm so tired. Ain't slept properly since." 

"I know," Jim whispers. "But it's okay. You're allowed to mourn, Bones. And you have. Let me take care of you now, though. That's what pure love is, right? Give and take. You need to sleep. Let me hold you." 

"Hold me," Leonard agrees in a whisper, nodding, almost dazed. 

So Jim does. 


	16. Resignation Day

Leonard decides that kissing Jim awake is how he wants to start his day. The carnation is still in the bed with them, albeit slightly crushed, but Leonard retrieves it from the mattress and taps the flower to Jim's nose. Jim doesn't immediately stir; it is not until Leonard's lips begin to place dry kisses down the dents of each rib that Jim's eyes finally flutter open.

"Bones," Jim mumbles, shifting his hips onto their side in order to give Leonard's mouth better access to his body. Jim makes a low, appreciative sound and his hand absentmindedly finds Leonard's nape, fingers playing with his hair.

Leonard continues to kiss down Jim's side, dragging his lower lip over the soft skin of his flank down to his hip before opening his mouth to assault the creamy skin further, raising red bruises with patience and a skilled tongue. The trail of love bites makes it as far as the curve where Jim's thigh meets his calf before it is stopped in its tracks.

"Stop teasing," Jim groans, breathless.

Leonard places another quick kiss to the top of Jim's thigh before whispering _morning, darlin_ ' into the skin. It almost goes unheard.

"Don't you _darling_ me," Jim chuckles. "You're a menace."

"I'd say I'm sorry—"

"But you don't lie."

"Mmm, not to you anyway," Leonard agrees, throwing the cover back and pulling Jim's sleep pants down the rest of the way until they are caught around his ankles. Jim kicks them off before helping Leonard with his own cotton pyjamas. Their movements are desperate, like the smouldering ashes of a fire suddenly burst back into life. Maybe they can be phoenixes.   

Although Leonard is more inclined to see Jim as a falcon, majestic and bold, even considering how fragile his wings can sometimes become.

Leonard pushes Jim back down into the mattress—a firm hand over each pectoral—and straddles him. Jim smirks, his hands moving over Leonard's muscular thighs to settle on his hips, keeping him still for a moment as Jim grinds his half-hard cock against Leonard's ass. It's picture-perfect, Leonard thinks—or, at least, his view of Jim is: chest laid out bare before him, Leonard's sun roughened hands in contrast to that comparatively untouched, almost alabaster skin.

Leonard looks tawny and unworthy but that isn't how he feels. With Jim's cock pressing against his body, he feels like royalty. Jim, his insurmountable wealth.

Leonard preps himself with deft, efficient fingers and seats himself on Jim to the soundtrack of their intermingled pleasure. Leonard rolls his hips, not levering himself upwards just yet, testing their usual impatience. Jim just gasps at the feel of Bones shifting over him, crowding every single one of his senses, from the bright hazel of his eyes and the hard peak of his nipples to the scent of soap and desire that fills the bedroom. The bite of Leonard's nails as the man arches his back and begins to raise himself along Jim's cock and the taste of their morning breath as they lick and bite each other's lips.

"Fuck," Jim hisses, but the harsh 'k' is dulled, engulfed by Leonard's mouth as they share uncoordinated, sloppy kisses.

Leonard's knees hitch him higher and faster until Jim is clutching at his neck, keeping their lips together as he comes deep and hard. Panting.

But Leonard doesn't stop. He's so close; his orgasm building right from his core. He gasps at the feel of Jim's hand around him, wrapping his own hand over Jim's, both of them jerking their wrist in unison until Leonard's release is splattered like abstract artwork over Jim's abdomen and up his torso.

Leonard leans back, his arms barely able to hold him upright.

"C'mere," Jim growls playfully, pulling Leonard back towards him until they're both plastered together against the mattress.

"You don't make a good case for leaving the bed anytime today," Leonard murmurs.

"So don't," Jim whispers, kissing Leonard's cheek.

Then Jim's stomach grumbles and Leonard laughs.

"Let's shower and eat and then come back here for lunch."

#

Eleanora has been up since six; she has travelled into town to restock their pantry, she has visited David's grave, she has washed the glassware even though their maid, Anna, came the morning of the visitation and cleaned the house from top to bottom. She catches the two boys kissing over sandwiches in the kitchen but bypasses them in favour of the garden. She'll tend to David's roses for a while. A full-time gardener will be required now to keep things looking neat and tidy.

When she retires to her room for a rest, just past noon, the sounds coming from Leonard's room are unmistakable. A jolt of anger hits her, and suddenly she is as disgusted by her son as she was not one week ago. But she slowly realises it is not disgust or anger that clenches at her heart. It is envy, and frustration that she feels such. Leonard has another fifty or more years with the love of his life, while David was ripped from her far too prematurely.

She waits in the hallway between the doors of the two bedrooms, listening to the hushed vows of love and loyalty. She hears Jim gasp and whisper _Bones_ , holding it on his tongue reverently, like it is the Eucharist and can save Jim from his sins. Like Leonard's love will grant unto him eternal life.

She knows that feeling. She mourns the loss of it.

#

Jim and Leonard rejoin the world sometime after six, and they creep down the steps like school children trying to stay up a little later than allowed. Eleanora is sitting in the drawing room, her feet tucked under her on what was David's armchair. She is reading an old-looking paperback collection of Whitman poetry. Jim is surprised by that, but it doesn't fail to make him smile.

"Have you eaten, Mama?" Leonard asks, timid—not desiring to disturb her reverie.

"I had some of that potato salad that your aunt brought over."

"And when was that?"

"About two o'clock, _doctor_ ," she says, raising an eyebrow at her son. Telling him to tread carefully.

"Let me make some dinner, then."

"You'll make it regardless of what I say. Just plate me up something small."

"Ma..."

"Leo."

"Okay, okay," Leonard pacifies, raising his hands.

"Such a mollycoddler." Jim grins. "If you want someone to fuss over, you could be a darling and get me some lemonade."

"Infant," Leonard mutters, but goes back out into the hallway nonetheless.

"Always fussing," Eleanora says with a smile. "I was unwell for a few weeks while he was in the eleventh grade, he only left my side when he had to go to class. It was sweet, but—"

"Overbearing?" Jim supplies. "I can imagine. The first time I came home from rehab he stayed at the house for a week. It was the first time he'd ever stayed at mine. My mother was wary and kind of put out but I don't think he can help it."

"He's a fixer." Eleanora nods.

"He's not gonna want to leave you here, you know," Jim points out.

"I'll be fine. Besides, you two have your own lives to lead. Maybe you'll visit. More often than Leo and Joce did, anyway."

"We will," Jim assures her. "We'll be back before you've even had time to miss us."

#

When Leonard walks into the kitchen, Jocelyn and Clay are already crowded around the stove, Clay with his arms around Jocelyn's waist and Jocelyn stirring something in a pan.

"I've made plenty," she says, upon spotting Leonard. "Although I don't know how Jim feels about shrimp."

"He's allergic, but he'll be happy enough with a bowl of that potato salad." Leonard smiles, stepping past them to pull bowls and trays out of the fridge. They've been given so much food over the last three days, it's overwhelming. Clay detangles himself from Jocelyn and ambles around to the other side of the breakfast bar, sitting himself on one of the stools.

"We're flying back to Virginia tonight," Jocelyn says. "I'll leave the car here so you and Jim can drive back when you're ready."

"I don't think I'll be leaving Ma yet," Leonard says. "Not alone in this big house."

"Of course not." Jocelyn sets a plate beside him on the kitchen counter before passing another plate to Clay. Leonard grabs a fork from the draining rack and spears a pepper, making a noise of sumptuous gratification around the spices that fill his mouth.

"Are you squeezing the lemons or something?" Leonard can hear Jim padding up the corridor. "Oh yeah, that's nice. Feed yourself and leave us to starve," Jim teases, shaking his head and making a grab for something on Leonard's plate. Leonard smacks the bridge of Jim's hand and watches Jim recoil.

"Shrimp," Leonard explains. "There's loads of food over on the counter there, though."

"I guess it's every guy for themselves out here." Jim smirks.

"Shall I make you something?" Jocelyn asks with a concerned smile. Like he's a guest in her house. Jim shrugs off the desire to bristle at her over familiarity and chuckles instead.

"No, Jocelyn, I'm just messing," Jim says gently. "Sit down and eat yours. There's plenty already made."

She smiles at him. Her eyes are blue like Jim's, although they are rounder than his, like two huge saucers framed with grey eyeliner. The set of her cheekbones is shallow but she frames her face beautifully with a light dusting of rouge. The lines of her face are soft and delicate, with a heart shaped face and a lazy 'm' shaping her upper lip.

They look similar on the surface: pale, blond, blue-eyed. But the similarities between them end after that. Jim is twenty-three and he already has crows feet when he smiles. Jocelyn, Jim imagines, will look as flawless as a pristine china-doll for the rest of her life.

"Leo says you'll be staying around for a while," Jocelyn says gently, just to make conversation.

But it's news to Jim. He assumed they'd be giving it a couple of days and heading home.

"I, uh..." Jim looks to Leonard for an explanation or clarification of some sort.

"Well, yeah," Leonard says, seemingly confused by Jim's hesitance. "Can't leave Mama on her own."

"Elle doesn't want you fussing over her," Jim counters.

" _Elle_?" Clay questions. "Never heard anyone but David call her Elle."

"She says it sounds different when I say it, since I don't talk like you Georgians." Jim shrugs.

"She's taken to you then," Clay notes. "Colour me surprised."

"Clay, baby, behave," Jocelyn chides. "Why don't we, uh, leave you two to chat?"

Jim watches Jocelyn and Clay lift their plates and head out of the kitchen, presumably in the direction of the dining room.

"You want to stay here?" Jim asks. "Permanently?" It's only a guess, but one Jim's suddenly certain he's right about.

"She'd be on her own, Jim." Leonard frowns. "It's not right, not after everything I've done. She needs someone here with her. She needs her family."

"What about us?"

"What about us? You don't think we're just as strong now—hell, stronger—as we were in DC? Does it matter where we are as long as we're together?"

"Of course it matters! My life is in DC!"

"You could visit all the time..."

"We could visit _here_ all the time!"

"Your mom has Sam and Aurelan, Tiberius is there, and Christopher. No one's here, Jim. Mama would be all on her own in this big house."

"She could come with us."

"I can't just uproot her, Jim. This is her home."

"What about our home? We were starting to build a life, Bones. And now, what? We live here and become Southern Belles? What about the hospital?"

"There are hospitals in Georgia, Jim. Emory is only a forty-five minute drive."

"Or how about you just become a parish GP, huh? I mean who needs to be a surgeon nowadays anyway."

"Don't be spiteful," Leonard grits out. "There ain't nothin' wrong with being' a small country doctor, Jim. We're not all made for the big city."

"You hated this place. You left for Mississippi, you left for Virginia, you came back here once a year, if that. And probably only because Jocelyn made you... And now you want to up sticks and live here."

"It's different now?"

"Because she's finally at peace with the fact you're gay?" Jim says. "I get that. I get how fucking brilliant that is for you, for us. She's a really good woman, Bones. But she's not an invalid. You want her to need you because it puts your conscience at ease. Maybe it's you who needs her around and not the other way." Jim doesn't feel like he was shouting but Leonard looks startled enough that Jim's pretty sure he might be.

"What about you, Jim? So eager to run home to Mommy?"

"Our life is in DC, our friends, your job..."

"Friends? Who, Jim? Janice? Because she's clearly fucking great for you."

"Don't swear at me, don't you dare. Janice is my best fucking friend and she needs me."

"She drags you into the gutter."

"Is that what it is? You don't trust me to stay clean in DC?"

"You've been doing good here. I won't lie and say it hasn't crossed my mind. Everything with the campaign... It's unbearable. I feel like we're walkin' a tightrope."

"And of course I'll slip and fall," Jim spits bitterly. "Fuck you, Bones."

"I'm trying to do what I think is best," Leonard whispers.

"Yeah... What you think is best. You're meant to send me a email or something when you decide things about our future. You know, just out of courtesy." Jim huffs out an irritated breath, turning away from Leonard and pulling a fork out of the cutlery drawer to violently stab at the bowl of coleslaw set out beside him on the counter.

"I was gonna talk to you about it. I'm not taking it as a given—"

"You had, though, before I had to go an complicate things with my own plans and opinions. How sticky this must be for you," Jim scoffs. "You thought I was gonna roll over and let you stroke my tummy and wag my tail and happily live out the rest of my life in Peach Tree, Georgia."

"It's not such a bad place."

"Hmmm, not now that the world is all rosy and accepting of you," Jim agrees, bitterness catching in his throat like bile.

"We could make a life here. We could get horses or a dog. Hell, Jim we could do anything you wanted."

"We could do that in DC. Well, maybe not the horses." Jim shrugs. "I understand you wanna be here to make everything okay, but I just—I think you're getting ahead of yourself. And I don't think... I couldn't live here, Bones. This isn't my world."

"I thought I was your world," Leonard whispers.

"Or maybe you're just another in a long line of addictions."

Shock flares in Leonard's eyes. Hurt and betrayal too.

Jim's never considered it before. But coke was the centre of his world at one time, and then Leonard came along. Besides Leonard, Jim isn't sure what else he really has in the world. There are friends and family, sure, but nothing that's his own, that defines him, that impassions him.  

Maybe Leonard is Jim's cocaine when the white powder otherwise alludes him.

Maybe they're not ready for this.

Maybe they never really were.

Maybe they're just not meant to be.

Leonard looks at Jim, unblinking and brokenhearted.

"Where does this leave us?"

"I don't know," Jim admits.

"It's only two hours on the plane, Jim. We could see each other every weekend."

"With your schedule? You know hospitals don't work like that, Bones."

"We could make it work," Leonard urges. "Why are you giving up?"

"I don't think we're ready for each other yet," Jim whispers. "I don't think—I don't _feel_ like a whole person. I feel like chipped off parts of other people. You're a doctor, Bones. You have a whole life separated from me. _As you should_ ," Jim says before Leonard can interject. "I love you, Leonard. I will always love you. But I don't think it's our time yet. I'm clean only because it's a way to keep you, I have nothing outside you. I need—I need to find _me_. I can't do that here. I can't be the doctor's little wifey. I'm not—I don't know much about what I am, but that isn't it."

"Jim," Leonard whispers, surging forward to cup Jim's elbows. "I can't do this without you."

"You can, Bones." Jim smiles. "I know you can. You're gonna be strong for your mom and you're gonna get through this. You're _Bones_ , right? The fucking structure that holds everything together."

"I don't—how is this gonna go?"

"I'm gonna check myself in somewhere," Jim says. "And then I'm gonna take some classes, maybe I'll enrol in college somewhere. You're right, DC isn't good for me. Politics isn't good for me. Maybe I'll find out what is, besides you." Jim smiles.

"You figure yourself out and you call me, yeah?" Leonard breathes tears shining in his eyes.

"As soon as," Jim nods. "I'll keep in touch, Bones. You're the best friend I've ever had. Better than Janice or Gaila. I love you, and that isn't going to stop."

"I get it, Jim. I don't like it, but I get it."

"I'll go upstairs and pack," Jim says softly.

"Wait." Leonard catches Jim by the waist and pulls him closer, pressing their lips together. It makes Jim's heart ache. All Leonard's mourning is poured into the kiss, fuelling it. The death of his father, the termination of their relationship. It hurts more because they're still in love.

"One last time," Jim whispers—rushed and desperate, bashful and bold—cupping Leonard's cheek. "Just to tide us over."

Leonard pulls one of Jim's jean-clad thighs into his hand, guiding it to his own thigh, walking him backwards into the pantry, closing the door behind them.

They move with such heat that Jim doesn't know how he'll give this up. Their love making is _always_ intense—even when they are slow and tender with each other—their love is enough to bust the world in two, to swallow the oceans and leave the earth gasping.

"Fuck me," Jim demands, "please, Bones. I need to feel you inside me."

Leonard's answering groan goes straight to Jim's cock. They separate for mere seconds to pull down their pants—Jim manages to get his all the way off but Leonard just tugs the waistband of his down under his ass before pressing back against Jim. Crowding him. Jim pants against Leonard throat, murmuring a litany of _fuck, yes_ before letting himself be lifted by the thighs, allowing Leonard to pull them around his waist as the doctor braces his forearms against the wall.

Jim is still loose from earlier, but even considering that, and the slight slickness from Leonard's precum, there is still a burn as Leonard fills him. Jim scrabbles for purchase, nails digging into Leonard's shoulders before Jim reaches around to scratch down his back.

"Jesus, Jim," Leonard rasps. "Don't go, please don't go."

" _Bones_."

Jim's surprised he could come again—and so fast—after their romp-filled afternoon. But Leonard has always made Jim do crazy things, so maybe it's not that surprising at all.

Leonard continues to thrust and Jim's cock twitches even though he's completely spent. Raw from the inside out.

"Fuck," Leonard growls, coming hard inside Jim before burying his face in the crook of Jim's neck. Jim can feel the wetness of Leonard's lashes on the collar of his t-shirt.

And so it ends.

A tear. Not a tsunami.


	17. The Drift

Eleanora doesn't understand why Jim has left. One minute Leonard and Jim are joking about lemonade and then Jim is packing his bags and getting into a cab headed for the airport.

Leonard looks shell-shocked.

"I don't understand," Eleanora admits later that evening, after Leonard has retired to his room for hours to grieve over yet another loss and long since returned. Jocelyn and Clay are gone. It is pitch black outside with just a light sprinkling of stars.  

"We weren't ready yet. We're on different paths. I need to be here. He needs to be... not here."

"You don't have to stay here for me. I'm thinking of selling up and moving back to Savannah, a smaller place, fresh. Somewhere David doesn't linger. The memories will drive me mad. I'll live by the beach, somewhere like my father's house. You used to love it down there when you were a boy." Eleanora threads her hand through Leonard's hair. "I'm proud of you Leo. But Jim needs you more than I do."

"He's trying to learn not to need me," Leonard murmurs.

"What?"

"He said that he feels like a person made up chipped off pieces of other people. I'm the glue holdin' him together, I think. He deserves more than that. He's gonna grow up, you know. He's only twenty-three."

"You're not even thirty."

"But I did my growing up, Ma. I did college and my residency. I've worked for the last four years—dealing with life and death every day. Jim ain't even sure whether or not he's an adult yet."

"He's a good boy, though. Good for you. I didn't want to see that, Leo, but I can't help but see it. You two are so good for each other," Eleanora insists.

"We will be," Leonard assures, exhaling a shaky breath. Nodding slowly.

All Eleanora can do now is trust Leonard to be right.

#

Jim explains everything to Sam and Winona over dinner, then again to Tiberius while the old man helps him pack a fresh duffle of clothes to take to the new rehabilitation centre. It's a six week treatment program that aims to give its clients peace of mind and confidence that they can return to the general populace and not fall back on their addiction.

Gaila turns up about an hour before Jim needs to leave for his flight to LA.

"Long time no see, G," Jim says with a grin, pulling her into his arms, holding her close.

"I have no idea how you got the balls to _dump_ Leonard, but I get it, Jimmy. And I'm proud of you."

"I didn't _dump_ Bones. It's a break, you know. So I can get straight. So I can be the sort of man who deserves his love."

"You always did," Gaila promises. "But I know what you mean."

"Let's go for coffee and a catchup before I have to fly to LA."

"You're travelling all over the place, Jimmy. Maybe in all this _finding_ yourself you can find yourself a home, huh?"

"So funny, Gaila." Jim huffs, trying to hide his amusement behind a scowl.

"I missed you too, Jimmy."

#

This is the sort of earthquake Tiberius has been anticipating since Jim first got clean. His grandson has so much potential, and he's finally realising he needs to learn how to use it. Jim's finally making the hard decisions, he's finally owning his life instead of being run over by it. There is a long road ahead of Jim, but it is the road to happiness. No one deserves to get to the end of it more than Jim.

And Leonard.    

But, by this point, Tiberius knows that one equals the other and vice-versa. Jim will shake his addiction once and for all; he will put his mind to something, develop hobbies and cultivate a career. He will become a well-rounded, whole person. In turn, Leonard will deal with the grief of his father, he will make amends with his mother, he will finally learn to be an out and proud gay man who isn't hiding in the shadows of a heterosexual marriage.

They'll be better men.

Men worthy of each other.

#

A week after Leonard handed in his letter of resignation—which coincides with the day that marks a week since Jim returned to DC—Leonard receives an email.

_Bones,_

_They suggest not contacting anyone for the first few days. You're meant to take time out. Focus just on yourself, but I haven't gone a week without talking to you since we met and it feels strange to not know what's going on with you. I understand if you're not so ready to have casual chitchat yet—you can tell me to get bent—but I just wanted to make sure all was well. How're you? How's your Mom? Did she get the flowers I sent for the one week memorial?_

_This place is great. There's a lot of meetings and group sessions and networking but there are other stuff too. There's a gym and a pool. I've been running a lot; it helps me to keep my head clear._

_I don't really know what else to say. Trying to sum myself up like this is alien._

_But mostly I just hope you're okay._

_Always,_   
_Jim._

He'll admit to being surprised. By Jim's eloquence, by his honesty.

But he has no idea how to reply.

Doesn't mean he won't try, though.

_Jim,_

_Mama did get your flowers. Sunflowers, huh? They were beautiful. They reminded me of you. But then Mama said they reminded her of Pops so maybe they just take people to where they want to be. To where they are happiest. Wherever their sun shines._

_I'm doing okay. I'm doing my best not to drown my sorrows. Although I don't know if I'm meant to tell you that? I don't know what I'm meant to say at all. I miss Daddy like crazy, I miss you like crazy. But getting to know Mama again, just the two of us... It's going well._

_I've resigned from the hospital. Hopefully Emory will have me in a few weeks when I'm ready to get back to work. Although Mama's toying with the idea of moving to Savannah so I might hold off and go back to work when we move down there._

_That's all I can think of to tell you._

_I hope you're well._   
_Leo._

#

Winona is as surprised as the rest of her family to learn Jim will not be returning home at the start of May. There is a flying visit, of course, where he sells the penthouse and opens trust funds for Peter and the unborn baby with the majority of the money he has made from the sale.

Jim is changing before her eyes. He's wearing a soft, navy v-neck jumper. It's cashmere. He's got a fresh haircut, slightly shorter at the sides and more blonde than it was before he left for LA. He's smiling and there is a tan wrapping over his body, making him shine gold.

He looks healthy.

Winona has her son back. She is confident of that, if nothing else.

"Berkley?"

"They're the only ones who will take me seeing as though I didn't go through the usual admission process. They're only doing it because I didn't drop a mark on my SATs. It's my chance at a future, and they're an awesome college, Mom."

"I know, I just—" she shakes her head. "I'm proud of you, baby."

"I'm excited. I'll move up there, get myself settled. I start in August. But I'm not staying in dorms, so don't worry about me turning into a real fratboy." Jim laughs, and Winona finds herself doing the same.

"You need money?"

"I know I wasted a lot of it, but Dad left a big inheritance." Jim shrugs, wry little smile playing at his lips. "I'll be fine."

It's the first time in a long time that Winona has believed Jim when he says that.

#

Jim's life seems to move fluidly after that, for once. He's rents a small flat just twenty five minutes from campus in San Francisco's Chinatown. He gets a part-time job at a coffee shop like all good college students should and he takes up yoga, joins the student gym and goes to various different classes—cookery, gardening, flower arranging, origami, Spanish, sign language, sewing, woodwork—although nothing really sticks. Until he spies an amateur astronomy class. He's always been fascinated by space. Maybe this is something he should finally pursue.

He does. And he loves it. It reignites his passion for science, for discovery. He begins to eat physics books like they're the only sustenance he needs, and when his physics and astronomy springs are exhausted he drinks in Philosophy—particularly in regards to what all those men with white beards have to say about space.

By the time the semester starts, he's pretty much read the entire first month's reading. Apart from his literature module, anyway, but he likes taking his time with that stuff.

They're studying love poetry, in its broader sense, and from Spenser to Whitman to Armitage all Jim can think of is—

_Bones,_

_College is strange. Everyone is eighteen and it makes me feel old. Which is weird because I'm not old. I guess it's because I've always been around older people. Other than Janice, I guess. She's doing well, and she was happy to hear you'd asked after her. I think she though she ballsed everything up with you turning up to dinner high._

_She'll be finishing the program next week, and she's hiring someone to manage the Fleet full time so she doesn't have to be there._

_Things are really looking up._

_You'll never guess who I bumped into the other day... Nyota and her boyfriend Spock are living up here at the moment. He lectures at the university, if you can believe my luck. Although I doubt Nyota will be writing anything on me now that I'm a humble student and not a playboy wannabe._

_Spock—which, if you ask me, is a ridiculous name—is actually all right. He's got a stick lodged permanently up his ass. But he's clever, you know? And he's helped me get back into the swing of academia._

_Chris has too. Speaking of which, Mom's campaign seems to be going well. And Sam sent a few new photos of baby TJ. He already looks huge even though he's not yet four months old. Anyway, I attached a particularly cute one. I know your Mom got a kick out of the last few._

_Let me know how you are._

_Always,_   
_Jim._

Jim closes his email and opens up his college-level Introduction to Astronomy and begins reading through the last few chapters. Then he'll write his physics paper, flick through a few of the prescribed poems for his comparative essay and, maybe, if he feels so inclined, he'll make some notes.

But mostly he'll just be waiting for Leonard's reply.

Because _fuck_ Jim misses him.

Like an absent limb or a lost sense. But this is where he needs to be right now. This is how he earns a future. A future of both of them, together. The future he always wanted. Although, appreciating the existence of such necessity doesn't make the situation suck any less. Jim and Leonard were still left to celebrate their one year anniversary—on July 10th—via a tentative acknowledgement of the date over a brief phone call when they should have been able to commemorate the date properly: through the tender touch of hands and lips and tongue.

His phone pings to alert him he's received an email. Jim can't help the smile that creeps on his face when he sees _Leonard McCoy_ labelled as the sender.

_Jim,_

_TJ really is cute. It's a Kirk curse. Although he's never gonna forgive Sam for sticking him with Tiberius James, and I always thought you had it rough. I'll pass it on to my Mama if you make sure to give Aurelan and Sam our love. My Mama sent up some pie; I hope it makes it there in one piece. Sam actually invited us up for a visit next week, so no doubt there will be more pie._

_The new hospital is nice. I miss Christine like crazy but I'm slowly getting used to my nurses. I'm glad college is going well, even if it is weird. And I'm happy to hear Janice is doing well. You and Nyota meet up much? I think you'd make good friends if you stuck at it. Jocelyn called this morning. She's pregnant, just made it through the three months safe zone. She wants me to be godfather. Which I thought was pretty absurd but apparently she trusts me with this and I'm not meant to say no. I didn't of course._

_But it's still strange. You'll have to give me tips. You have two godsons now._

_Speaking of godfathers, I saw that article about Christopher and your Mom. Dating for real now, huh? It's about time, Winona deserves someone by her side through this. She's doing well in the primary debates. She'll have my vote when she makes it through._

_Look Jim, I'm sure you're busy. The first few months of college are always crazy but maybe we could do something soon. I'm off Wednesday and Thursday next week. Let me know, huh?_

_Leo._

Jim wonders how they've managed to put it off this long. Chatting for months and barely restraining themselves from talking relationship talk.

But now, Jim knows what he's got to do. And it isn't reply to Leonard's email.

#

Leonard looks up from the television to see his mother standing with a bouquet of white carnations cradled in her arms.

Every time Leonard catches sight of his mother she looks a fraction happier than she did before. His father's death has taken its toll, that fact is irrefutable, but she has not let it crush her as he had once worried she would. Day by day, minute by minute, even—she slowly blooms again, like the rose bushes she has planted at the front of her new home. A part of David, to remind her. He is always with her. She is always loved.

"Dr. Piper's gone all out, huh?" Leonard smiles, taking in the pleasantly surprised look on her face. Mark Piper works at the hospital with Leonard; he's slightly younger than Eleanora but the two of them get on really well and it's clear the cardiothoracic surgeon has taken a shine to her. Eleanora entertains him mostly out of kindness—neither of them really have the inclination towards romance, not right now at least—but Leonard thinks Mark enjoys being able to make a woman smile. Eleanora happily indulges that.

"They're not for me," she says, handing them to Leonard.

And then Leonard remembers. Of course, _white_ carnations. Just like the one Leonard had laid on Jim's chest before they—

Leonard sighs, shaking his head. That's not what he should be thinking about now. He should be thinking about the flowers Jim sent him in the stead of an email. A more personal touch, Leonard thinks. And Jim has always been tactile. He tries not to let a smile split his face.

 _Pure love and good luck._   
_I'm ready for us to have that, Bones._  
 _I hope you are too._

_(Meet me at 'Cardassian Coffee'; it's just on the corner off of the west side of campus. Wednesday, I finish at six.)_

"Well?"

"Four months, Ma. I haven't seen him in over _four_ months. What if—"

"Leonard McCoy," she snaps. "You go upstairs and you pack an overnight bag. I'll sort out plane tickets."

"How do you—"

"I read the card," she admits carelessly, almost teasingly. "I'll get you a noon flight from Hilton Head tomorrow and bring you home on Thursday evening, okay?"

"Mama, I don't even know—"

"That's settled then."

Which leaves Leonard very little room to argue. No room, in fact. It's half seven at night. He's just got in from a twelve hour shift, and now he has to mentally prepare himself to be reunited with the love of his life. For a millisecond, the small drop of cowardice inside Leonard swells and makes him regret ever offering to go up to Berkley. He wishes he could say he'd been drinking when he wrote that email, but he hasn't drunk a drop—not a single drop—since the day of the flight when he and his mother left Atlanta for Savannah.

He drank a _lot_ that day, vaguely remembers talking about disease and danger to the flight attendant before passing out. At least he survived the flight intact, if a little mortified when he finally awoke when the landing bell _ting_ ed.

And here he is now, standing dumbly in his bedroom, staring into his closet, trying to wrap his head around the next two days: about Jim, and how he might have changed; about what might become of their relationship now. His heart _pines_ for Jim. It has as long as Leonard has known him. Lots has been going on in Leonard's life over the last four months, from the move, to his new job, to having to network and developing a new circle of friends. He's been keeping in touch with Sam still and Gaila had tentatively kept him in the loop about Jim's recovery when he was in the treatment centre. But even with all that, he's not sure he spent a lot of time thinking much else other than how and when he might get back together with Jim.

And _if_.

There was never any guarantee they would work through this. This was going to be a period of dramatic change for both of them. Of evolution. For Jim, especially.

But what if Leonard isn't the man Jim remembers? What if Jim has evolved beyond all recognition? What if Leonard isn't the sort of man Jim wants or needs any more? _What if..._


	18. Not Roses

"Jim!" Gaila grins, curls bouncing as she shakes her head to restore some order to her breeze-blown style. Jim is standing at the end of the counter closest to her, matching puppy-dog grin out in full force. She waves at him, fingers curling daintily in one smooth motion as she steps into the café. Memories of her own college days hit her and she beams wider at Jim who steps towards her and takes her into his arms.

"You look good, G," he murmurs against her cheek. "How's New York?"

"It's so different than DC, Jim," Gaila gushes, stepping back from him and leading him Jim back to the counter with the intention of ordering. "The city just has this... this _vibe_. The pace is different, the people are different. It feels like home already."

"I do lunch here every day, G," Jim reminds. "Let me treat you."

She pretends to consider his offer before nodding eagerly. "You'll have to come out and visit, Jim. You'd love it."

"I don't know if I'm ready for the party scene yet, Gaila," Jim admits softly, looking serious. "Maybe I'll come up over winter break."

"You think _I'm_ talking about the _party_ scene?" Gaila scoffs. "I'm talking about art and museums and the _shopping_ , Jim." She can't help the laughter that bubbles up at that, but at least she's managed to put a smile back on Jim's face. He's trying so hard; an idiot could see that. But Jim's never been all that self-aware.

She can't call him an idiot anymore, though. Not now that he's a proud college student.

"What're you smirking at?" Jim asks.

"How's college going?"

"Shut up."

"Is that how you speak to your friends now? Too smart for me?"

"Well, at least you know you'll always be prettier," Jim agrees, pursing his lips against a smirk of his own. Gaila threads her arm through his and lets him lead her to a little bistro at the end of the street.

"And how's the other thing?" Gaila asks when they're seated.

"By _the other thing_ I assume you mean my precarious situation with Bones?" Gaila nods. "I don't know. I invited him over. For a day, you know, or two. Depending on how things go."

"Oh, that's good though, right? When's he planning on visiting?"

"Uh, tomorrow? If he shows at all. I sent him flowers. Yesterday. For today."

Jim looks nervous, and while Gaila doesn't want to make him worry about things more than he's already likely to be doing, she does think she ought to say _something_.

"You, ah—not so great with the planning, huh, Jimmy?"

"You don't think it's devilishly romantic?" Jim asks, hopeful.

"That's certainly one way of looking at it. And I guess, if anyone deserves a storybook ending, it's you two. Did he call, maybe? To confirm?"

"I told him to pick me up from work tomorrow. I was thinking dinner and a movie? Maybe the movie first? Give us time to just... _be_. We haven't just _been_ together since April. I don't want it to feel pressured."

"You're going to chew your lips to pieces. Stop it."

"I can't help it." He sighs.

"You two love each other, and it's been difficult. Of course it has. But you're—you're working on it now and you'll get back together and be stronger than ever. Okay?"

"Okay," Jim repeats nodding.

"Now let's order, because I'm starving and you've only got forty-five minutes left of your lunch break."

#

“This is in _our_ best interest, Chris. People are asking questions; people are sceptical. They want assurance that our relationship only makes us stronger as a political unit. They don’t want to have to fear that a harmless domestic between us is going to bring the country to its knees.”

Winona sighs, tucking a strand of errant blonde hair behind her ear before she stands, motioning for Pavel Chekov to come closer. Her motions are precise and efficient but underneath that austerity she moves like an old Hollywood actress, with grace and flare. Even though she is wearing well-tailored suit pants, one would not have to be too creative to imagine the way she would move in a classic-cut ball-gown, tulle swaying about her hips as she dances to music about love.

“And young Mr. Chekov here comes highly recommended.” She looks at Pavel, blue eyes assessing—always assessing—but not unwelcoming. “Nyota said if she were going to give an interview of this sensitivity, she would choose you. I’m choosing you, Mr. Chekov. Don’t make me regret my decision.”

“No, Ms. Kirk. I wont.”

Winona can identify a Russian accent when she hears one, as she has dealt with the country’s bigwigs for the last twenty years, but it still takes her by surprise. Pavel waits for Christopher to invite him to before he sits down, taking out a tape recorder and setting it on the desk, pen and paper in hand shortly after.

“People worry about a romantic liaison between their President and Wice President. Assuage their doubt,” Pavel prompts, smiling through what sounds like a confrontation. Winona likes him immediately. He is honest and he is straight forward; he knows his strengths, despite the fact that he looks like doe-eyed seventeen year old, still fumbling on coltish legs. He’s underestimated but he knows it. A trait they share.

“Not a romantic liaison,” Winona says easily. “One day soon we will be married. It won’t be easy, but nearly every man to be President before me was married and it was never called into question. Granted, Chris will be my Vice President. But that is because he is right for the job, and he will continue to be right for the job regardless of our relationship status. Just as I am right for presidency.”

Pavel nods. Winona thinks he might just agree with her.

She’ll have to send Nyota flowers for the recommendation, and perhaps she’ll have to finally admit the girl’s earlier blunder ought to be forgiven. Jim has forgiven Nyota, and, it seems, Carol Marcus. Winona knows it isn’t her place to hold a grudge. Not this one, at least.   

#

Leonard is early for everything, so when Jim looks up at the clock and sees he only has ten minutes until the end of his shift, Leonard’s absence worries him. Of course, the rational part of Jim knows that Leonard isn’t going to stand him up. Leonard loves him; Jim _knows_ that. But the irrational part of him—the part that spent six years clinging to drugs to see him through the day—isn’t so sure. _Can’t_ be so sure.

And then it starts to rain. Just a drizzle at first, but it was sunny this morning and the sudden burst of black clouds is unexpected. Jim frowns, cleaning the last nozzle of the coffee machine. The rain makes him feel uneasy, like his evening is being silently jinxed from an all-powerful source.

Jim’s life could really do without the jinxing, right now.

A couple of colleagues look at Jim warily. Usually, he’s eager to get out when his shift is over. It’s not that he doesn’t like hanging out with them, it’s just that he usually has umpteen other things to be doing.

He sets a cloth down on the counter and begins wiping away the few stray coffee stains that are lingering from the last bout of customers. He know he’s being overdramatic. The look on his face is probably one of a kicked puppy. There’s no reason for him to be so forlorn. Even in the rain, Leonard will come. Even if the sky were falling through, Leonard would come.

Jim hears the bell above the door tinkle and his breath catches. Even with his hair slightly sodden, Leonard looks beautiful. Better than Jim remembers. Better than any photograph Jim had managed to get his hands on since they separated.

“Bones,” he breathes. He really hopes he’s smiling but there’s a tightness in his chest—a desperation, pressing against his lungs—and he’s not sure he’s able to manage it.

His colleague, a young woman named Darwin, smiles before gently easing the cloth out of his hand and sending him around the otherside of the counter.

“You look good, Jim,” Leonard says. His voice is rough, Jim thinks, maybe from the shock of a cooler climate or maybe he’s just a ruined by the sight of Jim as Jim is of him. Jim fervently hopes it’s the latter.

“Bones,” Jim says again before throwing himself against Leonard’s chest, grinning into the wet lapel of his coat. Jim feels as his shoulders are squeezed in the embrace, the way Leonard always did when they were together. And then Leonard’s hands are around Jim’s waist, it is intimate and tender and Jim is sure he’s blushing.

Leonard’s eyes are unfazed when Jim steps back; he doesn’t mind Jim’s fumbling emotion or his fanciful appreciation for the personal space of others.

“I missed you,” Jim murmurs, afraid to look away from Leonard’s face in case he should wake up from a dream—blink—and lose this moment, the one they’re painstakingly carving out into existence.

“I missed you too.”

Leonard sounds sincere to the point of breaking and Jim remembers it was _he_ , Jim Kirk, who enforced the separation, he who told Leonard they needed time apart.

“I’m sorry,” Jim whispers, pressing the words into Leonard’s neck as they move against each other for a second embrace.

“But you were right,” Leonard concedes, knowing everything that apology holds for Jim, everything he’s using it to try and express. It’s like they haven’t been apart at all. It’s like Jim is waking from an intense dream, waking to see Leonard’s hazel eyes, the one’s he fell asleep to just a few hours ago.

But it hasn’t been a few hours, it’s been _months_.

“You really do look good,” Leonard repeats, gruffer this time, more like what Jim’s used to. Leonard isn’t fragile like him, he is strong and decided like the tide of the ocean, washing over Jim and cleansing him of his sins.

But Jim has cleansed himself this time, has righted his own wrongs for once, and that will make them stronger.

“You too, Bones,” Jim says with a small smile. He’s wearing a shirt and slacks, suede lace-ups that might very well get ruined if the rain gets any heavier. “Let’s get some dinner. I made reservations.”

“Sounds good.”

As they head down the street, walking shoulder shoulder to steel themselves against the rain that continues on, not a drizzle anymore but instead the full pelt of a shower, Jim realises—in the subtle fidgeting and the rasp to his voice—that Leonard is nervous.

The concept is unfathomable. Leonard has never been nervous about Jim, even in those first few weeks of dirty hotel hook-ups and not much else besides. Sure, neither of them ever wanted to get caught, but now— _now_ , Leonard seems ready to crumble, like there is something ready to bust out of him, something he’s trying hard to contain. It worries Jim.

“Are you—”

The question dies on Jim’s mouth as Leonard turns them, face to face as the rain hits cold on their cheeks. He’s got Jim by the shoulders, eyes on fire—bright gold and amber, ringed in deep brown.

“ _I love you_ ,” he growls and Jim’s heart soars. “I damn well love you.”

Then Leonard’s mouth closes over Jim’s and somewhere far away Jim thinks he can hear thunder. But maybe there’s no thunder at all, maybe it’s the way heart is pounding, racing like a thoroughbred right out of the stables. A bright tattoo against the dark clouds. Their own source of thunder.

For all the tension in the kiss, Jim’s body loosens, turning to butter in Leonard’s arms and sliding close against him.

“I fucking love you,” he hears Leonard mutter, sliding his tongue and teeth along Jim’s jaw. Jim’s lips quirk at the swear.

“I love you too,” Jim urges, but his voice is slack and powerless, almost sloppy as he melts against Leonard. Like a wisp of an exhale caught only after extensive replays on an old roll of film. Delicate, just like Jim has always been. “I’ve always loved you.”

This declaration is stronger—some things are that way the second time around.

Leonard nods, setting their foreheads together.

“I don’t want to eat, anymore,” Jim whispers.

“Then take me home instead.”

#

Leonard opens his eyes to diluted darkness. The bright morning sunshine is hidden from the room by the heavy curtains, but the material is sheer enough in places that the room is cast in an almost sultry glow; Jim is curled into his side, tracing the dot-to-dot pattern from one freckle to another around the expanse of Leonard’s ribcage.

“Mornin’,” Leonard says with a yawn.

“Hmm,” Jim agrees, eyes flicking up to meet Leonard’s gaze.Then Jim shivers, and Leonard can see gooseflesh pimple his skin, so he pulls Jim in closer, wrapping his arm around Jim’s shoulders instead of his waist. “I’m not cold,” Jim whispers. “Just—”

“I know.” Leonard nods. They’re both overwhelmed. Leonard looks across the bedroom floor to the littering of clothing, to the tilted lampshade and the knocked over photograph frames where Leonard had hoisted Jim up onto the vanity table last night. Where they had shared heated kisses—needy and inflamed—and tried to explain just how much they’d been missing each other with the strength of their bodies alone, pulling and pressing against each other, rutting like animals.

It had taken hours of this frantic display of love, tears pricking in the corner of their eyes as they had choked out declarations of love and forgiveness—Leonard eagerly accepting Jim’s apologies, eating them up like chocolate truffles, taking them right out from between Jim’s lips and in turn pressing words of pride into Jim’s throat.  

Leonard had guided a leg over his shoulder, kissing his way to Jim’s knee. They had been hard for what seemed like forever but Leonard hadn’t been sure. Was Jim his to take like he used to be? Was Jim his to hold? Did Jim want his name screamed from Leonard’s throat?

Leonard had had to go on instinct. And instinct had told him that while everything had changed, the very setting of both their stories warped beyond recognition, _they_ had not.

And then Jim had said it. _I want you inside me_. And Leonard had come undone.

From the vanity it had been the floor, Jim on his hands and knees while Leonard tongued him, still slick from Leonard’s come. It had felt like a reclaiming—no, because Jim had never been anyone’s to claim. No, not a reclaiming, a _refinding_. Like luckily stumbling across a much beloved sweatshirt in the bottom of a drawer in your mother’s house, or walking passed an antique shop, spotting a grandmother’s opal ring that had once been pawned to pay the rent.

That’s what it had been like, when Leonard had pulled Jim on top of him—once they had finally reached the bed—as Jim made love to him. A refinding. Of Jim. Of himself. A piecing back together of all they had lost in their months of separation.

“Thinking’s dangerous, you know,” Jim murmurs, licking a warm stripe along the curve of Leonard’s right pectoral.

“I don’t want to go.”

It’s out before Leonard is able to stop it, to censor himself.

“So stay,” Jim says simply, without a single hesitation. What did Leonard expect? Jim loves him and he loves Jim. Leonard should stay.

“I can’t. I have work.”

“I don’t mean just another night, Bones.”

“I know you don’t.” Leonard sighs before turning himself onto his side until he and Jim are facing each other. “I want to be with you, you know I do. First, I need to go back to Savannah, sort things out. I’ll need to wait for a position to open up at one of the hospitals out here. We have time, Jim. We don’t need to rush. Neither of us are going anywhere.”

“How am I meant to wake up tomorrow without you here? How am I meant to sleep tonight knowing how well you fit in this bed alongside me? I don’t wanna sleep alone anymore, Bones. How do I go back to that after last night, after this morning?” Jim pushes his face into the pillow and groans. “You have to go in like ten hours and—”

“I know.” Leonard sighs again, brushing hair away from Jim’s forehead. “I know. But I swear, Jim. I damn well promise you, I’m coming back.”

#

Jim arrives Friday evening a little after seven. After driving Leonard to the airport the previous afternoon, he had called Spock and requested a little TLC. While reluctant to ever handle Jim with anything resembling _tenderness_ , Spock had agreed and invited him around for dinner. Perhaps Nyota will be the one to provide the care Jim so desires—although knowing Nyota and Jim’s relationship, that appears highly doubtful.

“Don’t mope,” is the first thing Nyota says upon Jim entering the lounge. Spock has taken his coat to hang in the closet and retrieves a bottle of sparkling cranberry and raspberry juice for the table. “You’re back together, you said so yourself. It’s confirmed and settled and he’s going to start looking for a job out here. I know you miss him, Jim—”

“I do. But you’re right,” Jim concedes. “As always.”

Spock recognises Jim's vague attempt at flirting and watches Nyota roll her eyes. When they had first met, Spock was rather affronted by Jim’s brazen personality. It was abrasive and uncomfortable in comparison to Spocks far more subtle, controlled emotion. But Spock had quickly learnt that Jim’s outward confidence, his flirting and his jokes, were a guise to overlay the confusion and insecurity swimming in his depths.

In fact, after a few months of friendship, it has become quite clear that the contrast between their character, between their worldview, proves beneficial to them both. Now, Jim’s faux romantic intentions towards Nyota amuse, rather than irritate, Spock.

They still irritate Nyota, but only on the surface.

“Of course,” Spock agrees, smiling at his girlfriend. “Although it is only natural that you would feel morose. To be separated for such an extended period of time, only to be reunited for a sngle evening, is unjust.”

“Spock, you _care_?” Jim coos. “Who would have guessed?”

“I have, on many occasions, expressed my sympathy for your sit—”

“Joke, Spock.”

There's a pause, Nyota is probably still rolling her eyes. 

“Joke, Jim.” Spock mimics, somewhat deadpan and with a quirk of his eyebrow. If it were in his nature, perhaps Spock would smirk.

“Still can’t tell.” Jim chuckles, although Spock knows that to be a lie.

“You will learn,” he jibes softly, turning on his heels to retrieve their evening meal.


	19. Giving Thanks

Trying to navigate her day to day life with Peter and TJ had been a struggle for Aurelan to begin with; between Sam’s continuous worry and her mother’s running critique she had felt like a first-time mom all over again. But TJ is almost six months now and happily sleeping through the night while Peter, having recently turned three, spends most of the day at his playgroup, so Aurelan is finally feeling settled in their routine. And herself.

But it’s October, which means Halloween, Thanksgiving and then Christmas. Aurelan and Sam are neutral territory for their families and will no doubt have to play host to the latter two celebrations. A lot of planning and a lot of people. Aurelan doesn’t know if she has the capacity to be that accommodating, but Sam is a family man and so she’ll try. For him.

Guest lists are important, she supposes. It’ll be her, Sam, the boys. Her parents and Winona. Tiberius, of course. Jim will no doubt want to come, which will mean a visit from Leonard. She likes Leonard; she’ll be looking forward to seeing him.

But will he come? What with his mother being on her own now?

There’s nothing to say she couldn’t invite Eleanora. They’ve spoken on the phone enough times and both her and Leonard have been up for the occasional visit. Plus, Eleanora might bring up more of her peach cobbler. That is certainly worth an invite.

“Ms. McCoy?”

“Aurelan, darlin’, please. I’ve told you to call me Eleanora I don’t know how many times now.”

Eleanora sounds a little bit chirpier every time Aurelan speaks to her, like the woman is finally letting go of the threads of grief she had been wrapping herself in since April. Aurelan is happy for her, and for Leonard too. He’ll be much more willing to move back up North with Jim if he knows his mother is more settled.

Not that Eleanora needs Leonard’s constant buzzing and coddling. She’s a strong woman, strong in a different way to her own mother, or Winona, strong in a way Aurelan hopes to be one day. They didn’t get off to an easy start, not with Eleanora’s past homophobia, but watching Eleanora with Leonard, watching the way she dotes on her son, has taught Aurelan that she must allow people to grow and change, that sometimes people need a little prod before they can evolve.

“Eleanora, then. I was calling to ask if you’d perhaps like to come up to ours for Thanksgiving. The boys adore you and I know Jim would love to see you.”

“And Leonard, of course,” Eleanora says. Aurelan forgets not to underestimate the woman’s savvy sometimes. Aurelan’s quite sure Eleanora knows every single hidden motive, however small, to every action everyone does.

“It’d be nice for them to spend it together, yes. But I would like to see you too, and Leonard will want to spend it with you.”

“I’m not saying no, sweet pea. I’d love you spend Thanksgiving with ya’ll. Get to know everyone a little better.”

“Good, that’s good. I’ve got a few more people to invite. Let Leonard know for me, won’t you?”

“Will do, Aurelan. I’ll speak to you soon; give my love to the boys.”

“Thanks, Elle.”

#

The sound of panting fills the kitchen; it probably sails off right down the hall and out the front door to be heard and tsked at by all the neighbours. But Leonard doesn’t care. He has Jim laid out beneath him on the newly fitted granite countertops, knees cold and thighs tense as he levers himself up and down Jim’s cock, head thrown back. _Panting._

It’s been too long since his last visit, almost a whole month, they’re not used to going that long without each other. Since his first trip up to San Francisco in August, Leonard’s been coming up fortnightly and it’s nearing the end of November now.

Leonard has two days off before Thanksgiving and Jim didn’t have to beg to get Leonard up to California although Leonard can’t say he didn’t enjoy the begging.

He’s enjoying this even more.

“I’m never going back,” he breathes. “I’m never—fuck, Jim. _Yes_.”

“You just want me for my body,” Jim says, chuckling slightly before it catches in his throat. “Not that I’m complaining. God, Bones. I’m definitely n—not complaining.”

Leonard rocks himself, bucking his hips to bury Jim as deep as he’ll go. He wants to be consumed by Jim. He wants to be eaten alive by the waves of Jim’s vast ocean, held in the electric current of his blue eyes forever. Gasping like he’s drowning. But Jim would never let him drown. Leonard feels the press of fingertips at his hips and knows Jim is close so he tenses, listens as Jim keens and grunts, filling Leonard before wrapping a hand around his cock.

“Come on, Bones. I got you.”

Leonard arches his spine, stuttering into Jim’s fist. There are words trapped in his voice box. Words that usually come so easily. But he can’t reach them, can’t free them. He puffs out a dull breath through his nose and comes all over Jim’s hand and chest.

“You’re everything, Jim,” and there they are, easy as anything. “I need you to know that.”

Leonard slumps forward onto Jim’s chest and they lie there together until Leonard’s shoulders start to get cold. Jim kisses his cheek, smiling.

“Come on,” he whispers, carefully pulling out of Leonard and shifting so that he can slip down from the counter. Jim turns back, leaning over to hold one of Leonard’s elbows, extending the other hand so that they can twine their fingers. Jim is standing in such a way that they look for all the world like Prom Kings ready to dismount the stage after receiving their crowns.

Leonard hops down from the worktop, feeling Jim’s come slick inside him. Usually he’d feel conscious about the way it’s dribbling out of his asshole as they walk through the hall to the bathroom, but he can’t muster the energy to. It’s not as if Jim’s ever minded before.

When they get into the bathroom, Jim soaks a cloth and pulls Leonard against him, wringing it before turning them so that Leonard’s hands are clasping the rim of the sink and Jim’s chest is pressed against his back. They maintain eye contact in the mirror as Leonard feels the warm flannel wash over his skin, Jim pressing kisses along the seam of his nape.

“Stay,” Jim pleads. “After Thanksgiving. Come back with me and stay.”

“You know it’s not that easy.”

“Make it that easy,” Jim whispers. “For me.”

“You know I’d do anything for you,” Leonard promises, but his voice is strung with hesitancy. They have to be realistic. What’s the point of Leonard coming to San Francisco without a job? Moving across the country isn’t something that can even be contemplated, let alone entertained, right now. Especially not while they’re still thrumming under the release of their orgasms.

“But not this.” Jim's voice is not upset or angry. He just sighs, kissing Leonard again and refusing to pull his face away from the crook of Leonard’s neck. Lips quirking into a smile, Leonard reaches his arm up to coast his fingers through Jim’s thick locks, even thicker now he’s clean. Everything about Jim is so healthy now; seeing Jim like this, happy and settled, is the highlight of Leonard’s month. He shouldn’t have to miss out on the everydays they could have together.

“You’re right,” Leonard says, and Jim lifts his face away. “After Thanksgiving. I should stay.”

“I’m always right.” Jim smirks for a beat before his eyes sober. “That doesn’t mean you will. I know it’s d—”

“I will.”

#

The boys arrive late on the evening before Thanksgiving. Eleanora has already been at the house since lunch—her and Winona chatting all the while about the state of the economy and, of course, Winona’s campaign. Tiberius had to laugh when Eleanora sheepishly admitted she had always voted Republican. But Tiberius understands; it was just the done thing. It was the way they were all brought up, on ideas of tradition and family and keeping America _America_. But times changed, Tiberius assesses each candidate on their own merits and, it seems—where he’s concerned at least—the Democrats always have an edge. His son had an edge. Winona has an edge. _The_ edge, if the polls are anything to go by.

“Enough politics,” Jim says with an over-exaggerated sigh.

It’s been so long since Tiberius has seen Jim; he forgot how well his grandson had looked when he left the treatment centre. Jim is a new man, happy and at ease with himself, like his limbs have been unbound from a tight coil that used to keep him stiff and upright. Now Jim can manage just fine on his own, no restrains required.

“You boys look good,” Tiberius says, looking from his grandson to Leonard and smiling. “It’s nice to have you with us, Leonard.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Tiberius hears Jim heave in another sigh. This time it seems to settle him some, shaking off the excess energy that used to make him bounce of the walls. Jim smiles; Tiberius doesn’t know who or what it’s for, but it’s a beautiful sight nonetheless.

“Leo!” Eleanora steps up from her perch against the breakfast counter, throwing her arms around his neck. Leonard lifts her from her tiptoes to hug her more soundly. “It’s good to see you.”

“You saw me five days ago, Ma.”

“I know,” she placates. “I know. I just—“

Leonard just nods his understanding, Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallows.

“And Jim,” she murmurs, setting her hands on Jim’s chest. Everyone in the room seems to watch the push and pull of her hands as Jim breathes. “A couple of phone calls wouldn’t have gone amiss,” she scolds and Tiberius can’t hold back his laughter.

“And here I thought you were gonna get soppy on the boy.”

“Me? Soppy? Tiberius Kirk, you watch your mouth.”

“Yes, Ma’am,” Tiberius nods, smirking with that familiar Kirkian glint in his eyes, creases at their edges.

Leonard and Jim exchange a glance and Tiberius rolls his eyes.

“Mom,” Jim says, pulling her away from the stool on the opposite side of the worktop and trying to make her twirl. Winona looks unimpressed, but it breaks soon enough and a little laugh escapes her throat.

“Eleanora’s right, you should call more often.”

“I know, I know. But I’m a busy college student now, you know?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Winona scoffs. “I know.”

“What’s that look for?” Jim huffs, amused in part but straightening indignantly.

Tiberius’ gaze flicks over to Winona; she’s got this bemused sort of fondness pitched across her face: eyes soft, almost half-lidded; mouth quirked.  

“Nothing, Jimmy,” Winona says with a slight shake of her head. Winona’s always had trouble expressing pride, especially for her sons. Especially for Jim.

“Sam and Aurelan are bringing the boys around for an hour of so this evening. But it’s early rising for all of us tomorrow; breakfast here, lunch and dinner at Sam’s. No doubt it’ll be a late one,” Winona explains.

“They’re bringing the boys?” Jim grins.

“Did you hear anything else that I said?”

“Nope.”

“Idiot,” Leonard says fondly, picking up their bags again. “I’ll take these up, Winona. Are we—"

“In your old room?” she finishes with a strange look, caught between an apology and a knowing smile. “Of course you are. Chris is in the office. Get him to help you up with those.”

“I’ll be f—“

“Leonard.” Winona fixes him with a pointed look, not one to be argued with. Leonard’s shoulders sag but his lips quirk upwards; Winona is trying to mother him, and Leonard—much to Tiberius' amusement—is letting her.

“Yes, ma’am.”

And it's truly a sight to behold, Tiberius thinks. It’s not that Winona and Leonard were exactly fighting the last time they saw each other, but they have—and always would, Tiberius thought—have a tenuous relationship. Leonard was a married man, playing about with her son. Winona doesn’t let that sort of thing go, no matter how many times you might prove yourself. A leopard doesn’t change his spots. Although, looking around the room now, from Winona to Jim to Eleanora and Leonard—well, it looks like that little idiom ain’t worth shit.

#

“And it didn’t work out with that Jodie girl then?” Sam asks.

It’s not that it makes Janice uncomfortable to talk about her, and she knows that Jim’s elbow in Sam’s ribs is a protective gesture more than anything else, but she really doesn’t want to be the centre of attention today.

“Before I went into rehab, we uh, we called time,” she explains. “It was amicable enough. No broken hearts. She just needed someone who was gonna be around, and I—well I wasn’t.”

“I’m sorry, Jan,” Sam says with a sigh. “I shouldn’t have asked.”

“No, no. It’s okay. I’m happy now,” she assures him, and the rest of those sitting around the table.

“And you look beautiful, Duchess,” Jim counters with a wink. “Ignore Sam. He’s always putting his foot in his mouth, just likes the taste of Italian leather.”

“You’re an asshole.” Sam grins. “A fucking asshole.”

“I’ve been gone ten minutes and you’re already swearing like a sailor,” Aurelan chides from the doorway. She’s just put the children to bed; they’ve had their dinner and their hour’s worth of board-games—which Janice has to say is always nicer in theory than it is when you actually sit down to play—and its nine o’clock now, which definitely makes for adult time. Aurelan’s been very sensible though; she’s got two recovering drug addicts in her house and she’s catered accordingly.

Janice notices that Leonard is drinking alcohol-free beer, just like Jim, and she feels a pang of loss.

“While the cats away and all that,” Sam says, leaning back to kiss Aurelan’s cheek.

It’s not that Janice hates being single. The rehab clinic gave her the tools to love and accept herself with or without a partner, but at times like this, of love and family and tradition, she can’t help but wish she had someone on her arm, someone to bring home to meet the Kirks.

Tiberius holds his hand out to her, frail and wrinkled even though he still looks relatively young, especially young for a great-grandfather. She giggles coquettishly and accepts, letting him twirl her around for a moment before he settles a hand on her cheek.

“You’ll find someone,” he says gently. “You’re a good girl, Janice. Don’t beat yourself up.”

“You’re too observant, old man.”

“I’ve had enough practice in my time, kid.” He shrugs. “Know when I’m looking at a lovesick pup.”

“Loveless, you mean.”

“It’ll happen when it happens. Don’t rush it.”

“What about you and Ms. McCoy?”

“Ellie? Ah, she’s just like an old friend, Janice. You know how it is.”

“Like me and Jim?”

“Without the queer.”

“Of course.” She grins. Tiberius never fails to make her feel better, to make her feel wanted and welcome. He’s the closest thing to a grandfather she’s ever know and she loves him like he were blood.

“Bring me over a glass of that sparkling fake shit and we’ll have a drink together,” Tiberius directs, moving himself into one of the armchairs.

“Yes, sir.”

#

It’s just past midnight when Leonard and Jim sneak away. Janice promised to drive Sam and Aurelan home within the next hour and god only knows when Christopher and Winona will go to bed, they’re still on their White House body clocks, staying up all hours of the night to talk campaign and write speeches.

Jim certainly won’t be doing the same; if he’s gonna stay awake into the early hours of the morning he’s got better ways to do it.

“Feels strange, bein’ back here,” Leonard whispers, rummaging through his duffle bag to find something to sleep in. Jim can’t see why he’d want to do that. In Jim’s mind, they’ll definitely be sleeping naked. Although the _sleeping_ part is very much negotiable.

“Hmm, lotta memories,” Jim agrees, taking his shirt off and unbuttoning his black skinnies. “Some very good memories, as I recall.” Jim takes a moment to leer obscenely when Leonard turns around to eye him.

“Make sure you get yourself outta those. You know it takes me forever to get ‘em off.”

“So I have to take my clothes off while you’re searching for clothes to put on? That’s unfair.”

“I’m not looking for clothes to wear, you infant.” Leonard huffs, throwing a bottle of lube onto the bed and throwing a pointed look at Jim.

“I thought you were going soft on me.”

Leonard just smirks. Jim frowns in confusion for a moment before realisation dawns and a laugh startles from his chest. “Don’t even say it,” Jim whines.

“I’m very rarely soft around you, Jimmy.”

“Ugh,” Jim groans, shaking his head. “You’re terrible.”

“Terribly hard.”

“Too far.”

Leonard just laughs.

This is what Jim misses the most about not getting to see Leonard all the time; now, when they’re around each other it’s so _intense_ because they know in less than twenty-four hours Leonard will be flying back to Georgia. Every moment together is spent like it’s their last. There’s no room for banter and jokes, just _I love you_ s and _I’m here_ s. But one of the best things about their relationship is that they’re such great _friends_. Jim loves spending time just listening to Leonard make awful puns and grouch about the weather.

They’re getting that back now, and it’s such a welcomed relief that Jim feels himself relax that last little bit, finally feeling like a normal human being, not one walking on a tightrope, afraid to fall. He’s unwinding, losing all the frantic fear that they wouldn’t be able to pick up where they left off, that he’d ruined them beyond repair.

“You okay, darlin’?”

“Yeah,” Jim nods. “Better than.”

“Good,” Leonard says with a small yawn, pulling his long-sleeve over his head and casting it aside.

Jim steps forward, into Leonard’s space, hands fumbling for his belt and the buttons of his trousers. They share the silence, Leonard with his hands hanging by his side as Jim divests him of every scrap of clothing until Jim leans even further forward, a little smile curling at the edges of his lips, and licks a wet stripe over Leonard’s collarbone.

“Tease,” Leonard murmurs.

Jim makes a low sound of assent before sinking to his knees.

“Oh God.”

If he could stop himself from smiling smugly, he would, but Jim knows how much a good blowjob kills Leonard. It’s the reason Leonard gave Jim his phone number after their fumble in the garden almost eighteen months ago. It’s a little tool Jim adores using to get Leonard tense and pliable all at the same time, body confused at what it wants or how to feel. Jim starts by kissing Leonard’s thighs. _Softly does it_ is the key with Leonard: small licks that barely graze the skin. Leave him wanting more; that’s Jim’s prerogative, and it works so well considering how sensitive Leonard’s thighs are.

Feeling the tell-tale shake of the knees, Jim pulls his hands up the back of Leonard’s calves, knees and thighs, taking the left in both his hands, caressing the warm skin before burying his face in the curve of Leonard’s hip. Hands bury themselves in Jim’s hair, holding him there as he breathes in as much of Leonard as he can, pubic hair rubbing against his chin.

“Hmm, terribly hard,” Jim agrees and the heat of his breath on Leonard’s naked skin makes Leonard keen, shifting his hips forward, silently begging for more.

Because Jim’s not cruel—not where it comes to Leonard, at least—he sits back on his legs, skimming his hand along Leonard’s pelvis to the base of his cock and guides it between his lips.

After that it’s slightly rougher, slightly messier. Jim tries to swallow as much as he can as often as he can and the pace is relentless. It makes Leonard buck and heave and gasp; toes curling and ass clenching.

There’s no warning before he comes, just shoots against the back of Jim’s throat and leaves Jim moaning, scrambling to lick up every last drop, kissing the head of Leonard’s cock when he’s done.

Jim feels hands under his armpits, pulling him up off the floor and into an embrace.

“Don’t fall asleep,” Leonard murmurs, getting Jim into bed and pulling the duvet over him. “I’ve got a favour to return, just—just give me a minute.”

“Yeah, or twenty.”

“Asshole.”

“You’re stuck with me now, and my asshole.”

“Well,” Leonard says softly, pulling Jim to him for a kiss. “I can't complain much about that.”

“Cheeky fuck. You can’t complain at all!”

“That’s my prerogative.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” Jim jibes. He sighs then, and finally readies himself to ask what he’s wanted—but dreaded—to ask all night. “You told Elle yet?”

“About me moving up to San Francisco after this weekend? Yeah. I’m gonna go organise the moving truck tomorrow and we’re gonna go back with her when we leave here and pack up my stuff. I’m calling the hospital in the morning.”

“What did she say?” Jim asks, distracting himself from just how calm Leonard seems about everything. Usually he’s a ball of nerves, listing every possible casualty they may face. He must be ready for this. Jim hopes to God that’s the case.

“Said it was about time.”

Jim smiles. _Yeah, about time._ He and Eleanora have disagreed on a lot of things in the past, but on this—he completely agrees.


	20. Political Animals

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here we are folks, the epilogue! I hope you enjoy it and thank you all so much for reading and putting up with the length it took me to get this final bit posted!

_Fourteen Months Later; January 20 th_

“With every new President comes change. It is easy, in hindsight, to appreciate change, to see the development and evolution of something and feel pride. But the process of change is often an arduous one. One filled with disappointment and failure. Change does not come easy.” Winona pauses, letting her words seep out over the crowd. She is looking at Jim, and he nods at her. Leonard isn’t watching Winona though; he has already heard her recite this speech twice. He has already seen the tears spring to her eyes, to Jim’s eyes, even to Sam’s eyes. Instead, Leonard watches Jim, whose hand is nestled within his own.

“Sometimes our old ways, our traditions, our societal norms, bring us comfort, even when we know they are flawed. The process of change can be draining. But change brings about progression, and that, I think, is something everyone standing here today, and everyone throughout America can be thankful for. When I look back on the history of this country, of its people, I am filled with pride at how far our ancestors strive for change has brought us. And yet there is still much change that we, as a nation, must undertake.”

Leonard thinks of all the hatred that rules over their country, he thinks of the abuse, of the poverty, the unfairness of it all. He watches Jim and Sam and watches the fear in their eyes, Sam even more so, as they watch their mother speak on that familiar podium, as Sam remembers—of half-remembers, like the smoky train station haze of a dream he once had—the day his father bled out cold, only words into his own inauguration speech twenty-five years ago.

The rest of Winona’s words are lost under the buzz settling beneath Leonard’s skin. They have come so far now; and this, this axis that has ruled their world for so long has tilted—this strange chapter of Leonard’s life that is marked within the pages of someone else’s book; it is finally finished.

People are applauding and Leonard realises Winona must have finish. Jim leans his head onto Leonard’s shoulder and kisses the side of his chin.

“She did well, huh?” Sam whispers, Jim nods slowly, like he can’t really believe they’re hear either. Three and a half years since he and Leonard had their first fumble against a peach tree. They have a house together now; Jim is half way through a degree. Leonard is the Godfather of Sam and Aurelan’s youngest son, George, only two months old and sleeping soundly in Eleanora’s arms.

“She did good, Sammy,” Aurelan agrees, kissing his cheek. “Mister Secretary,” she amends, smirking.

“Oh, don’t.” Sam cringes.

Jim laughs and it’s infectious; even Peter and TJ, who are supposed to be with Aurelan’s parents, are laughing.

“Watch it, guys,” Sam warns—very dad-like.

“Don’t listen to your old man,” Jim advises, taking each child by the hand. “He’ll only make you boring.”

“As opposed to a lunatic like you?” Leonard jibes.

“Always finding fault,” Jim sing-songs while they make their way out of the stands and towards Winona and Christopher. “Well done, Mom,” Jim says, kissing her cheek. “You managed to be interesting enough that even the boys didn’t fall asleep.”

Winona scoffs, and Leonard’s pretty sure he hears the fond murmur of _jackass_ leave her lips.

“I’m sure it was _your_ attention span she was most worried about, Jim,” Christopher murmurs, grinning at the affronted look the words bring to Jim’s face.

“Thanks, Chris.” He scoffs before turning away from his Godfather to look at Leonard, who is struck, not for the first time that day, by how good Jim looks. Not that he can say as much here. They’re surrounded by hundreds of people and Leonard shouldn’t be leering. But, as Winona rightly made a point of in her speech, it’s a free country. He can leer at his boyfriend of nearly three years if he wants to.  

And he does. Even as Jim follows Sam away to the drinks table, getting the kids lemonade and himself a bottle of water—and a sandwich, of course. Leonard scoffs, rolling his eyes.

“Eyes up, Leonard,” Winona whispers, smirk playing at her lips when his head jerks to look at her. A blush heats his neck even though his gaze had been innocent enough.

“I—”

“I’m joking, Leo,” she says softly, reassuring. She sets a hand on his forearm and Leonard feels himself slowly begin to relax. Winona’s gaze is not unlike Jim, her eyes a slightly paler, slightly more worn around the edges, dulled by a hard life and loss. But they smile at him nonetheless. “It was good to see you for New Year,” she begins. “It had been a while.”

It’s chiding, he knows. His mother is exactly the same since Leonard moved up to San Francisco. _I never see you from one month to the next, what if I forget what you look like?_ He’d barely seen her in the years between high school and meeting Jim. But things have changed now, so much has changed.

“You were right,” Leonard says, “about change. It was fitting, I thought.”

“I’m glad. I thought so too.” Winona seems to steal herself against something then, her shoulders go rigid and her mouth tightens. “I would just—not just, you deserve more than platitudes," she chides herself. "We got off on the wrong foot, I think. And I never really… I never let up, did I?”

Leonard considers the question. He could lie, of course, play the perfect son-in-law role and assuage her guilt, but Winona would know. Honestly, Leonard’s quite certain Winona didn’t trust him for the first two years of his and Jim’s relationship. Once a cheat, always a cheat. That’s what she had thought. There has been a marked improvement over the last few months, yes, but the fact remains that Leonard is wary of Winona. Of her judgement of him.

“No, ma’am. I don’t think you did,” he says. “Not even when you wanted to.”

“I’m sorry for that,” she says, and she owns the words, just like she owned her inauguration speech. Leonard feels it, deep in his bones. “You’re a good man, and you love my son.”

“I don’t know that the two points of that sentence go hand in hand necessarily. I haven’t always been a good man.” Leonard chuffs out a breath, it’s cathartic almost, to say it so openly, under her gaze. To know that it doesn’t matter anymore, that she understands.

“I don’t think that’s true. I think you’re a very good man who has had to make some tough choices, I’m sorry I didn’t always recognise that. Christopher says that I can be cold sometimes, and sometimes that makes me apathetic. It’s not an excuse, I hope you’ll appreciate that. But it’s an insight...” Winona purses her lips and looks over at her two sons, her three grandsons. “They all look so much like George, all making up where the other one lacks. Sam with his stout chin, Jim with those eyes… I’m so thankful he has you to protect him, Leonard. I’m sorry I never said that before.”

Leonard takes her hand, a compulsion, a need. “Don’t regret the past, Winona. If we let it keep coming at us then we’ll never enjoy what we’ve got now.”

David McCoy flashes behind Leonard’s eyelids like bright phosphene sparks, dizzying his vision. He might have tears in his eyes. Winona does.

“But if you need to hear it, Winona, then I’ll say it. I forgive you. You’re a mother, though, I understand the kind of position that puts you in. My mother wasn’t always a bouquet of roses to Jim, either.” Leonard sighs; he wishes Eleanora was here now, that he could take her out onto the dance floor or watch her drink sherry with Tiberius.

“You’re very gracious,” Winona says, smiling wider.

And then Leonard knows what he needs to do.

“Would you let me have the first dance, Madame President?”

She giggles, a school girl again in frilly white socks with plaited hair, and places her hand in his.

#

“I might ask Bones to marry me,” Jim says because he can’t hold it in any longer, his lungs can’t contain it for another second. Sam’s eyes widen, in fact, so do Christopher’s. His mother simply nods. Jim frowns, it hadn’t thought it would be so easy. Aren’t they going to stage manage him? Don’t they want to discuss what angle they’re going to offer the press? “Has this got to do with you two dancing all night? It’s weird, you know, and I don’t know whether I like it or not.”

“One dance, Jim,” Winona corrects with a smile. “Just the one.”

“You were laughing like prom dates. You’re with Chris now, Mom, you don’t get to start picking out toy boys.”

“James Kirk, don’t you sass me.” Sam snorts. So does Winona. “I’m the President now.”

“You guys really don’t have a single thing to say when I tell you all I’m getting married?” Jim questions. He’s dropped into bizzaro world and he’s not sure if he wants any part in this passivity.

“Well, congratulations, obviously,” Christopher says.

“If he says yes, of course,” Sam jibes.

“I don’t think Bones has ever told me no,” Jim counters smugly.

“Apart from coke, but that was a good thing.”

Jim rolls his eyes. Almost two years clean. It should be a sore spot, but Jim finds it hasn’t become like that. It’s almost healthier for Jim to be able to talk about it openly, for his past addiction to not be held in some Pandora’s Box of sin—because isn’t that what got him into all that mess in the first place?—but to be held out moderately among the rest of his memories. They’re not pleasant to dwell on, obviously. But admitting to and taking responsibility for his addiction, and more importantly being able to talk about it when he needs to without shame or fear of chastisement, is what keeps Jim clean.  

“Thanks, Sam,” he mutters, dry. Sam pats him on the shoulder, holding his grip there, worry that he has crossed the line clear in his eyes. Jim sticks his tongue out childishly and Sam laughs.

“It’s good to keep a little perspective, little brother.”

“Has anyone ever told you that you’re an asshole?” Jim asks.

“You frequently.”

“I’m very clever.”

“Ugh, yeah. PhD candidate, don’t brag.” Sam makes a gagging noise and screws up his face. “Who goes back to college five years late only to be told they can have their Bachelors and their Doctorate in seven years? Didn’t you skip most of senior year?”

Jim grins at that, things have really turned around for him in the last eighteen months; he’s only halfway through his sophomore year at college and his tutors are already throwing their encouragements for him to continue onto grad school in the mix. Jim’s always been smart, but he has a hunger now, for knowledge and for the particular structure that comes from academia. He hopes when he puts his candidacy through at the end of next year, they’ll seriously consider him for a PhD spot.

“Principle Barnett always said I had a natural capability and intelligence.”

“And you got the good looks,” Sam says with a theatrical sigh.

“Ah, you’re not too bad, Sammy.”  

“They’ve never grown up, have they?” Christopher says, rolling his eyes but grinning nonetheless.

“I don’t know,” Winona counters, consideration sloping through her voice. “There used to be a lot more shoving and kicking.”

“Okay, anyway,” Jim huffs, shaking his head. “Me. Bones. Marriage. Focus.”

“Look, Jim,” Winona starts, which shouldn’t be surprising but kind of is. “I lost your father twenty five years ago and it took me almost all of those twenty five years to admit Chris and I could have had something special. And mainly, what I learned from that was that we just don’t have time, in this life. Everything is over so quickly. If it feels right, then you do it.”

“And you don’t think asking today would be morbid? Or, like, stealing your thunder?”

“No, Jim. Today is for everyone. Let it be for you and Leonard too.”

#

Winona sits alone on a high back chair by the bar, looking out of the floor-to-ceiling windows that drench the room in white light from the winter clouds, turning grey as the hours of the day chip against the hours of the evening. Leonard and Jim sit together, knees pointing inwards, on the only bench on the small outside patio area. They’re huddled inward, like co-conspirators planning the end of the world. It’s beautiful, and perhaps if she were an artist or a poet she could capture it better, more pristinely, and look upon it when she finds herself most upset, most drained, most aggrieved.

She watches Jim murmur something against Leonard’s cheek and Leonard’s answering smile is beautiful; perhaps her eyes are intruders, perhaps she has no right to observe such an intimate moment, but she can’t help it. Jim’s hand settles on Leonard’s knee and kisses Leonard’s jaw.

 _I love you_ , she imagines Jim saying, _I’ll always love you_.

But that mustn’t be it; Jim must be asking a question because Leonard is nodding earnestly, grinning like an idiot. Winona laughs, realising.

Jim has asked and Leonard has said yes.

It’s sweet relief. Not that she ever doubted Leonard’s answer.

Winona turns back to her drink with a contented smile, amusing herself with the idea of double barrelled surnames.

Kirk-McCoy.

McCoy-Kirk.

She prefers the former personally but, knowing both men, they’ll stick with their names the way they are—some things are better left unchanged.

Winona Kirk’s had a lot of names attached to her in her time and they’ve never been much of a concern. She’s achieved Madame President now, which is nice, of course. But it’s been different for Jim; some labels almost damaged him beyond repair. So it doesn’t matter now whether he’ll end up a Kirk or a McCoy or a mix of the two, he’ll be happy.

And wasn’t that the hardest victory?


End file.
